Take you Break me
by eyrianone
Summary: For five months he's been missing, but she refuses to believe it's hopeless . . . Consider this canon until 'Always', and AU from there. Complete.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: **Take you. Break me.

**Author:** eyrianone

**Rating:** T

**Spoilers:** Through 'Always'.

**Disclaimer: **(From ViaLethe) – 'Words are mine. World ain't.'

**Summary: **She refuses to believe it's hopeless.

**A/N: Sometimes I hate the 'angst' bug - but it's obviously contagious - so much of it about, and guess I wasn't really surprised when it bit me. Sighs. At least it brought with it the 'muse' and a complete plot line as a side-effect. **

**I'll dedicate this one to Purplangel - because she once told me she'd pay me for my stories - and to Kimmiesjoy . . .whose been infected with love for the rock band 'Hedley' and given more reasons for her to be up at 3.18am and dancing - love you both.  
**

* * *

I follow my heart through it all  
Holding on to you  
Together we'll never fall  
'Cause we are unbreakable

**Lyrics by Hedley**

* * *

**Chapter One: **All this doubt in my head.

* * *

**June 2013.**

She feels like a fraud for living here – even as she knows only too well that she cannot leave. If he's ever going to come home again – this is the place he'll come too.

_It's been five months Beckett . . ._

_Hunnie – if Rick were alive don't you think . . ._

_Dad . . . Dad would never do this . . . Kate we have to accept . . . _

_Girlfriend you know you can't deny the truth about this much longer . . . _

The well–meaning voices are loud, so damn loud this morning.

Kate Beckett pushes herself to exit the bed and make her way into the bathroom of Castle's loft, but in the doorway she pauses, holds fast. Reluctantly she looks back into the bedroom behind her, at the spacious California king bed and sighs with a heavy heart to see 'his' side of it looking so almost perfectly 'made' – is it possible she doesn't search for him in her sleep anymore?

Her eyes well with the shame.

The sting of tears, the rawness in her throat, these are nothing new – it's a constant struggle – sometimes a battle waged more than once daily - for Kate to hold herself together and not break down. She should be free to do that she knows - here at least – where there are no prying eyes to watch her – but she cannot suffocate the instinct that compels her to fight them.

Because tears have meaning . . . so no, she will not cry; she refuses to allow herself to _mourn_ him.

Once she starts to mourn him - this will break her.

So - not yet.

Because she still has _hope_ . . . although each passing week softly erodes a little more of it away, like gentle waves against a castle built of sand – its fading slowly.

Kate turns away from the bedroom, forcing herself onwards – and into another day. She reaches blindly for the light switch on the bathroom wall, and flipping it she catches sight of her reflection in the mirrors over the double sinks on the opposing wall.

This bathroom is too well lit she decides– and sometimes, times like now when vulnerability threatens, she hates it.

Drawn by evidence she doesn't actually want to see, the cop pads softly to the sink and rests her hands on the marble surface of the vanity. She looks reluctantly at the woman staring back – looks and this morning – she sees.

And God – does she ever look like hell.

And Kate remembers, because five months ago she'd never looked so radiant in her life.

* * *

Life PP - 'post-precinct' as Castle had dubbed it, was wonderful.

The first few months - after the stormy night they finally came together - had passed them both by in a whirl of sex, sun and summer. They'd just lived – they'd loved and discovered a new rhythm with each other in a world where Kate was no longer a cop but Castle was still a writer.

For eight weeks they'd just buried themselves in being together, until Kate had felt the need to insist Castle spend some summer time with his daughter before college, while she re-exerted her independence a little, and finally figured out what the hell she wanted to do, when he wasn't distracting her all the time and the only answer to that question was _him._

Castle took Alexis to Europe for month 'three' - touring the capitals of the continent while Kate made the decision that she'd like to go back to school . . . she still wanted to help people – and social work seemed like it would be a good fit for her, so she registered at NYU, and told a laughing Castle he was going to have two students on his hands when he came home.

He'd been so happy for her.

By month four Castle and Alexis were home.

Month five – Alexis began at Columbia and moved into the dorms. Kate began at NYU and moved into the loft.

Months six through eight . . . well when Kate looks back they were perfect.

Month nine . . . God, month nine . . . there are no words for how much she hates January. Month nine . . . everything came crashing down . . . because month nine . . . he disappeared – literally.

Richard Castle – vanished.

Into thin air – and for Kate – well the worse part sometimes – the part she cannot grasp - is that she was with him when it happened.

They were out to dinner. January 9th, the anniversary of Johanna Beckett's murder – and Castle – well Castle wanted them to take the first year they were 'together' for that date, and use it to turn the date around for her. He wanted them to celebrate all the wonderful things about her mother's too short life – instead of letting the awful consequences of that day continue to hang over them every anniversary.

And at first Kate did not agree – she didn't like the idea much at all.

But she was persuaded.

He was just _so_ eager – so happy, so charming - this wonderful man she was living with and the writer had wanted so badly to make it better somehow, so she agreed to at least let him try. And when January the 9th rolled around, to her intense surprise it was working.

Castle woke her early – worshiping her body with his love – reminding her of how very much alive she was – how loved, and of all she had gained since the night she'd walked through the rain - away from the past - in pursuit of him.

Then he insisted on 'meeting' her mother. She'd thought he meant he wanted to go to the cemetery – see the grave, leave some flowers.

But not Castle.

He'd made her drag out all her photo albums from the storage, and over breakfast he'd made her show him all of it. Literally everything - from the faded images of her mother as a child, through to her grad photos from high school – then university – law school – into motherhood.

Then he'd made her take him everywhere in Manhattan that her mother used to love.

He gave her mother back to her in the strangest and most poignant of ways all day – as they did indeed celebrate everything that her mother had been – a mother most of all.

And she fell in love with him all over again that day, until she was just breathless with the emotion by the end of it.

And in that moment of perfection, the closing scenes of a truly wondrous day – that was when it all – somehow – went wrong.

He took her to dinner that night – not to her mother's favorite restaurant – but to a restaurant he knew her mother would have loved – because he said he 'knew' Johanna now – and so he'd picked out a place for them with that in his mind.

And dinner was amazing.

And then afterwards, on the sidewalk Kate's father phoned her.

And Kate turned away from Castle for a little under a minute, and because he didn't want to eavesdrop he wandered down the sidewalk a little further . . . just a little further to give her some space to check-in with her father and see how he was faring on this most significant of anniversaries.

And when she hung up the phone and she looked for him – he was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I'm going on vacation (I know how freaking awful am I to start something new right before I disappear for a couple of weeks – I'm so sorry) I'm taking my muse with me though but no computer – just an old fashioned spiral notebook and a pen – rocking it old-school! So I will continue while I'm away – I'll enjoy it, and I'll just have to type it all up when I get back.**

* * *

**Chapter Two: **Dark days when my will was stolen.

* * *

Beckett trudges through the door to the cramped lobby of the Twelfth New York Precinct, no other word for it; she finds it hard to find enthusiasm for much of anything these days. She nods at the desk sergeant, bestows a token smile without warmth and forces herself onwards and into the elevator. For some unknown reason - this morning she's acutely aware that she's really struggling to be here – up until five months ago she'd never planned on being a cop again.

But then her partner 'disappeared.'

_Disappeared._

Kate's going with that verb as a description today – because she finds in her mind she has to constantly change it up – and she still doesn't know what to accurately call it.

And the not-knowing . . . it's driving her crazy.

_Knowing – and knowing 'why' matters._

Was he kidnapped? There have never been any ransom demands made for him.

'Missing' works – works as well as' vanished' or 'disappeared' . . . all them perfectly adequate words to explain something still currently unexplainable.

'Abducted' is just the same as kidnapped – except for the images of green men it conjures and the fact that monetary demands don't usually figure into it in quite the same way.

'Murdered'? This is the one that hovers perpetually on the fringes of her consciousness – and it's the one that tortures and maims and kills her – the unthinkable thought that hurts the most. But there is no body – and even on her darkest days Kate isn't remotely ready to assign this word into a sentence that includes his name.

She can no longer even bear the description of him as a 'murder-mystery' novelist. She sticks with 'crime-writer' . . . its just emotionally safer.

The elevator reaches the 4th floor – homicide – once Kate's home from home and the place in her life where she always felt the most in control – a sick smile stretches across her face at the thought. Somewhere between twisted and a grimace actually – control – what a joke. If she's finally learned a lesson about anything in life – it's every person's complete lack of control over the macabre twists of fate.

Kate reaches her desk and slumps behind her seat – she supposes that's why she's back here though – still seeking that reassuring illusion of control. The badge and the gun to hide her crumbling psyche behind – and access – the right to question and to investigate – to make sure someone is still out there – and looking for him.

The night it happened is as bad and as vivid in her memory as the night fourteen years prior when her mother was killed.

The cops. The questions. Fighting with officers she knew personally – that Castle knew – just to have him declared 'missing' immediately – to bypass the twenty-four hour mandatory waiting period.

The endless statements – the invasive questions . . . the offensive breaches by officers she'd once trusted as she saw how far across the line and into the deepest reaches of her life they wandered – and she couldn't have cared. In the end she had to call on both Alexis and Martha to cross file missing persons reports . . . she even went so far as to en-list Mayor Wheldon, and then finally six hours into the nightmare of that night - finally the right people began to listen.

Ten hours in and suddenly the FBI took over . . . and for the first few weeks Kate was actually quite grateful. Somehow reassured by the action of removing the search for him from the purview of the NYPD – and handing it over to something she still thought of as uncorrupted.

But her gratitude didn't last very long.

She might have been living with him, might have been a former colleague. . But regardless of _who_ told the Feds how much Kate loved him – how obvious it was to all who knew them both that she was absolutely not involved. She'd been placed at the head of the FBI's 'suspect' list and they didn't seem to be looking much further.

Which meant somehow, and someway – Kate had too.

Some way that gave her a right too . . . and there was only one option left then, just like fourteen years before – so Kate returned to the NYPD.

And the one thing that still amazes her even now, is the relative lack of groveling she had to do to in order to convince Captain Gates to take her back. Beckett isn't supposed to use her 'on-the-clock' time to look for him – but off – she didn't know Victoria Gates had it in her – that level of compassion.

_Do what you need to do – say what you need to say Detective – just be as discreet as you can with the department's resources._

And the best of the department's resources is once again having Ryan and Esposito as her wing-men.

A large mug of coffee suddenly appears on the desk in front of her and Kate startles, and there is a second – just a brief, brief moment, when her heart leaps in her chest.

_Castle?_

But when Kate raises her tired eyes from the worn surface of her desk , she sees Esposito flinching slightly, and trying hard to cover it beside her.

The Latino detective seats himself slowly on the edge of her desk – concern and hesitation warring with themselves in the dark brown depths of his eyes.

"Sorry Beckett." He says gently. There is a pause but then he obviously thinks 'to hell with it'. "You're getting more jumpy by the day Kate . . . still not sleeping?" He asks.

A watery attempt at smile flickers at the corners of her mouth before she gives in and shakes her head slowly.

"It comes and goes. Last night not so much . . . but sometimes Javi – sometimes I have these dreams . . ."

She trails off.

"And he's there." Espo murmurs, smiles at her.

She nods.

"Yeah."

"That's good." He says firmly. "You need that. It fuels you boss . . . keeps him real."

Nodding, Beckett reaches for her coffee and snakes her hands around the warm ceramic. It's June and the weather in New York is finally becoming warmer – but Kate still always seems to feel cold – and the warm beverage is a small comfort. Coffee serves to keep Castle present – a part of her every day even as it also reminds her of how very much is missing.

"Anything?" She asks, not looking up from studying the ripples in her drinks surface. It's a routine they go through quickly every morning, before they begin their real work for the day. Espo or Ryan check in with the missing person's team at the FBI – keeping the pressure on them – the scrutiny constant – and Kate asks them if there are any leads or sightings or anything new that has been learned.

The answers have never yet been the ones she's looking for. The sightings – all around the world – never actually Castle – but it's the routine and it must be followed nevertheless. Not that she needs to ask – if there was news they would tell her – but she feels the need to say it anyway.

The brunette takes another sip while she's waiting on the word 'nothing' but it doesn't come.

Esposito is silent.

Focusing her eyes back on him her eyebrow inclines. Again a war of indecision is being waged on her friend's face.

"What?" She asks impatiently.

The last time Ryan or Espo looked at her like that when she asked for an update – there were three new reported sightings claiming to have seen 'Richard Castle' – and they'd held back from her the news for the better part of a day before Ryan caved and told her.

That look means there is something new but they think it's a waste of time and they can't bear the thought of putting her through the wringer again – but they must also know by now there is no other choice.

"Javi?" Her voice is soft but the threat of an imminent explosion is clearly present – and Espo gets up off of her desk and stands staring at the floor of the precinct before her.

"Javi please."

"Something turned up – but it's creepy . . . I mean there is no way to know for sure if it's real."

Kate gets to her feet. "Creepy?" She asks.

Esposito nods.

"We don't know where it came from – Gina has no idea where it came from – it just turned up on her desk."

_Gina? Gina Cowell? As in Castle's ex-wife!_

"Gina as in . . . Castle's ex?"

Javi looks uncomfortable. "Yeah – kinda, but not . . . right now think of her as his publisher." He tells her.

"His publisher?"

"Gina is in interrogation one." Espo confesses to her. "She was here waiting for me when I got in. It seems something was waiting for her in her office this morning."

Kate's knees buckle.

_Not a body . . . not a body._

She must have visibly paled; Espo reaches out to steady her with a strong hand on her elbow.

'Breathe Beckett." He says sternly. "Ain't a body."

Beckett's mouth opens.

"Or a body part." He responds swiftly.

"So?"

"A book . . . well a manuscript to be more precise."

Kate's brows knit in confusion.

"And that's connected to Castle's disappearance how?" She demands. "Gina's a publisher – she must get inundated with manuscripts."

Espo nods. "She does –she said so too. But she's insisting on talking to you Beckett –she says this one is from Castle – she says she's sure of it."

Kate's face blanches and she's on her way past him and heading for Gina at once. Barging into interrogation room one she finds Castle's beautiful and coldly elegant blonde ex-wife seated on the suspect's side of the rooms' large table. A box of tissues, a black cooling coffee and a typewritten manuscript on the surface of that said table before her.

The publisher looks up as Beckett rushes into the room.

"Detective Beckett." She says, and while her voice is removed she sounds definitely relieved.

Kate nods. "Ms. Cowell."

"Gina." The blonde replies. "It's just Gina." She says, with a tentative smile.

Kate sits down opposite her partner's ex, she senses Esposito take the seat beside her.

"What is it that brings you by here Gina?" Beckett asks her.

The gorgeous blonde's eyes well with tears that don't actually fall – but then she wipes at her eyes with a tissue, taking a steadying breath before she responds.

"This was sitting on my office desk at 6am this morning." She explains. "It's from Richard."

Kate's eyes flick greedily to the typed pages – and then back to the other woman.

"What makes you think that?" She asks.

Gina frowns. "It's his style. His words. . His pacing . . . typical phrasing and syntax. Black Pawn has received hundreds of these since Richard went missing Detective – and I've dismissed all of them as frauds – but this one. This one - just a single chapter and I knew instantly it was his."

Beckett nods thoughtfully.

"You read the others too."

Gina scoffs.

"He's missing! We had too . . . I had to be careful – be sure. I didn't want to miss anything." She explains.

"But you don't have any proof – other than your gut instinct? Am I correct?" Kate asks.

Gina impatiently pushes the large pile of papers towards the detective across the desk.

"I brought it to show you – I figured if you looked at it too. If you thought – if you believed as I did that it was him, genuinely him – maybe it would . . . help."

Kate pulls the manuscript towards her, and runs her fingers hesitantly over the cover page.

'_Heat Lost' a novel by Richard Castle._

The title mocks her – but there is something . . . she shrugs the feeling off.

Beckett flips over to the next page; she can feel Javi bristling with frustration and indecision beside her.

The next page is a dedication.

_To my family: Martha, Kate & Alexis._

_Just remember that I love you._

_R.C._

Kate's eyes are misting, and Javi's hand comes to rest on her arm.

"Beckett . . . "

"It's OK. I got this." She murmurs.

She turns another page, finds the opening prologue of the book . . . Kate reads the first sentence and instantly freezes. And she knows.

_Oh. My. God. _

_Castle._

Suddenly there is a memory running through her mind, an over-eager handsome playboy on one of his first cases - too much glee and annoying as hell.

_My first 'cold-case' . . . get it?_

_Give me two hundred and fifty pages and I bet I could make you?_

_No-one vanishes into thin air. There's always a story . . . a series of events that makes everything makes sense._

Kate reads the first sentence over again, gets stuck once more on the opening character's name.

_Melanie Cavanaugh._

Kate looks up, first at Gina, and then she turns to Esposito, silent tears escaping her green eyes.

He looks at her skeptically.

"Beckett?"

Kate finds her voice.

"Gina's right Espo . . . it's from him."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**: Drifting on the ocean tide.

* * *

_Five months ago:_

* * *

Consciousness comes slowly; he drifts into awareness of sensations first. An 'off-ness' to his reality permeates his brain, which feels like molasses . . . thick and hard to move through. He becomes aware of the knowledge that the bed is weirdly firm beneath his shoulders - harder than it should be – and that it feels somehow smaller. And his arms are empty and that hasn't happened in . . . months.

His eyes are still closed against the increasing onslaught of consciousness, but there is a brightness beyond his shuttered lids that is defiantly wrong . . . and surely not NYC in January. And he hears it now - waves crashing loudly against a shoreline.

Should be dream but he knows it's not, knows something is wrong . . . feels it in his gut.

Richard Castle opens his eyes to entirely unfamiliar surroundings; a white picture-less room, a white bed, and a sandy tiled floor. The very atmosphere seems thick, with a strange – almost tropical smell, and the unmistakable tang of salt in the air. He turns his head on an overstuffed pillow and sees French doors to his right (across an expanse of empty bed where Beckett should be) - obscured by gauzy white curtains, an ocean breeze ghosts pleasantly over his skin.

It would be nice, but the fact is Kate's not beside him, and he doesn't know where he is; and as he goes to sit up, his head spins, his vision swimming and graying at the edges. The writer lies back down, forces a swell of nausea down his throat and clenches his fists as he forces himself to breathe through it – whatever 'it' is.

The wave passes, and Castle cautiously ponders how to try to sit up again. He rolls tentatively to his right side, focusing his eyes on the French doors and the bright sunshine he can tell lies beyond them. His stomach rolls but his eyesight does not dim and he uses the edge of the bed to steady himself. Grasps it under his hands and leverages himself up until he can swing his long legs over the side of the bed and quietly sit there.

His head is swimming again, but at least he's upright.

His limbs feel awkward and heavy now that he's more aware of them. The commands to 'move' from his brain taking side-roads and back-alleys before they obey him – and the one thing he's sure of right now – is that he's suffering the after effects of some nasty-ass drugs.

And he doesn't remember . . . the last thing he remembers is a sidewalk in New York.

And a gorgeous, smiling – and happy . . . Kate.

_Kate._

All his.

There was a dinner with Kate – a special dinner – a special day, the details are foggy and then he's wandering down a sidewalk alone – but she's close . . . she's on the phone and then . . . then there's nothing.

From that moment to this one . . . there is just – nothing.

The writer struggles to stand, ignores the almost blinding way of vertigo that hits him full on as he forces his feet to move him across the room until he reaches the source of the sunlight and can push the flimsy material of the curtains aside. The French doors are open beyond the veil of net and as he shuffles forward – he can feel the heat of the day that lies beyond the threshold. Castle steps out into brilliant sunshine and . . . paradise?

Stunned Castle looks around him, he finds himself standing on the balcony of a house that he's never seen before, that rises up behind him. A huge white villa filling his view, it sits seemingly all alone on a cliff-top – with nothing but the endless blue of an ocean beyond it and nothing but an unrelenting sun above.

Fear begins its rise through the haze of his thoughts, comprehension wages a war.

Where is Kate? Where is she? And where the hell is he for that matter?

For this is _so _not New York in January – he doesn't honestly think it can possibly even be anywhere within the continental United States.

Panic flashes through him, steals his breath quick and tight and for a split second he wonders if there's any chance that maybe he's dead.

But then another wave of nausea has him doubling over the balcony's stone edge, retching terribly even as he apparently has nothing within him to actually throw up. And the author realizes he's not dead – he's just drugged and far – far away from where he should be.

Taking that into consideration then - he's missing Kate and his first order of priority needs to be establishing if somehow – somewhere – she's here too.

Nausea rises again and he sags over the side of the wall, presses his heated and sweating face against the sun-warmed stone and forces himself to breathe as evenly as he can currently manage. He's got to get out of this room, got to start looking . . . needs to find Kate.

But his stomach decides on this moment to cramp up, pain lancing up through his abdomen and Castle clutches at the wall to even stay on his feet – he feels miserable and he could kill for a glass of water right now.

There is a clink of glass against stone and his scrunched up eyes open to the sight of a large glass of iced-water as it's placed on the stone ledge by a man's tanned hand beside him.

He jumps back – startled, his feet slipping out under him, almost landing him on his backside - the stone wall abrades his hands as he clutches at it for purchase.

"You should drink all of that now that you're finally awake Mr. Castle. I guarantee you'll feel better pretty much instantly if you do." A deep, accent-less voice tells him calmly, and Castle follows the man's hand up to his arm and then up to his shoulder and then finally his uncooperative eyes locate his sudden companion's face.

Sudden and stealthy companion apparently. Castle knows he might have been doubled over and feeling sick but he still should have heard this man open the bedroom door, cross a tiled floor in shoes and enter the balcony behind him.

The man must move like a cat and Castle eyes him warily.

Tall – as tall as Castle himself, and athletic-looking, his companion is approximately his mother's age, and like Martha has a kind of 'timeless' quality to him. The writer finds himself looking into a weathered but still handsome face dominated by a set of arresting blue eyes. Dressed in black dress pants and an almost blindingly-white dress shirt with the cuffs rolled up to expose strong tanned arms, the elegant looking sixty-something man is exactly what his mother would term 'a silver-fox' – full head of white hair shot through with some still dark strands included. There is however sternness etched into his features, an inscrutable air about him – and Castle senses a deadliness in this man that he cannot begin to explain.

He might be standing there quietly, staring calmly at the writer, a half-smile dancing on his mobile lips but this man is lethal – absolutely lethal . . . Castle would bet his life on it.

He just doesn't understand why.

"Where's Kate?" He demands – putting as much warning into his tone as he can – useless as he already senses that warning to be.

Surprisingly a smile breaks across the older man's face.

"I knew that would be your first question – I knew it – not for a second did I doubt it." Is all he says in reply.

Castle growls.

"I said . . . where is she?"

The older man shrugs.

"In New York I imagine . . . and most likely looking for you." He says.

The author studies his companion's face closely for a long moment . . . wondering whether or not to believe what he's being told. The deep blue eyes watching him so knowingly are disconcerting, but he gets the sense the man is being truthful. It's a weird sense – he can't explain _why_ he's inclined to believe the man. There's just something . . . something about him.

Castle sags against the white stone balcony wall as yet another wave of dizziness hits him and his companion reaches out to steady him with a firm grip on his bicep.

"Easy Mr. Castle."

He picks up the glass of water in his free hand, hands it to him, but as Castle's about to take it gratefully he suddenly pauses.

The other man sighs.

"It isn't drugged I assure you. If it were required for you to still be under the influence then you would be. And before you can ask – I don't intend you any harm."

Castle relents, and then he takes the glass eagerly between trembling fingers. He downs it immediately, only realizing when the glass is completely drained just how parched he was. It feels like he hasn't had a drink in days – and maybe he hasn't.

Feeling stronger at once – as promised – the author straightens and pulls back to be released from the other man's support. His companion studies him – assessing it seems to ascertain that the younger man is once more steady on his feet before he inclines his head and let's go of his grip on Castle's arm.

"Where am I?"

"A long way from home – but safe Mr. Castle."

"Safe? Safe? Where is Kate? Why am here? Where am I? Tell me what's going on . . . or I swear I will . . . "

The other man interrupts.

"Or you'll what? Hmmm? Please don't embarrass yourself by making idle threats Mr. Castle. You are in _no_ position to demand anything. However I am not opposed to providing you with the answers to your questions . . . I actually want your co-operation Richard - may I call you that? And I assure you – once again, that you are safe here. And that's the answer to your second question. You are here because it saves your life. They were about to kill you – and I may be many things but I could not permit that."

"You aren't making any sense." Castle says wearily. "I mean . . . why should you care about my safety . . . who the hell are you anyway?"

The older man reaches out and grips Castle's arm again.

"I think maybe you might have guessed it given time . . . seeing as how you have so obviously inherited both my build and my eyes . . . your mother even gave you my name – the one she knew anyway."

Castle's eyes widen, he goes to say something but nothing will come out."

"Martha knew me only as 'Richard Gabor' . . . I'm your father."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four: **I won't crack; I can't make a sound without you.

* * *

"Beckett . . . are you okay?"

Esposito stands in the door of the break-room watching her with dark compassionate eyes that take notice of every tremble of her fingertips as she brews coffee.

Her damn stupid hands just won't stop shaking.

"Here." He says finally, coming to stand beside her he takes over the working of the espresso machine, demonstrating the same quiet expertise with it that Castle used to exhibit. And it's just too damn much and she steps back, closes her eyes, and breathing too rapidly she tries to keep it all inside.

His strong hand steadies her at the elbow and her eyes re-open. Javi's staunch and unyielding support seems to flow into her from where his grip on her arm steadies her upper body. He holds out the now full coffee cup to her with his free hand, guiding her back to a chair in the far corner of the room.

"Sit Kate." He commands of her. "And drink that" He adds. "The stimulant in it will help stop the shaking."

She smiles her thanks and he sinks slowly onto his haunches beside her, his tanned face strangely devoid of much expression, painted carefully neutral.

"Do you really think it's actually from him?" He asks guardedly. "I mean Kate – you heard Gina. Black Pawn, well they've gotten hundreds of manuscripts claiming to be his. Hundreds. How can anyone - even people as familiar with Castle's work as you and Gina - possibly be sure that _this_ one really is him?"

Kate sighs. Staring down into the dark swirl of hot liquid cradled between her hands she makes herself go over it again in her mind. Concern is rolling off of Esposito in quiet waves. As is his anger with the whole situation – with the sheer helplessness they've all been reduced to in the search for Rick. She knows her partner is just looking out for her. Just playing devils advocate here – trying to be the voice of quiet reason that doesn't let the emotion of this morning carry them all away. But she's still sure. Just holding that hand-typed manuscript between her hands was almost enough; almost like she could feel his skin beneath her fingertips again . . . the smoothness and the warmth of him . . . seeping from the words and into her exhausted psyche - holding her up.

"Javi . . . "

"Seriously Beckett – 'cop-think' here please . . . for me. Analyze what you read, what you saw in those few words and explain to me logically what convinces you that this is the real deal. Do it for Castle, so that we don't all waste our time, our emotions and our resources on a lie"

Kate drags her eyes back up to look at him. His posture is tense and his previously impassive expression is no longer so tightly controlled. She notices new lines that have formed around his eyes as they burn into hers, the dark brown awash with a pain that, while it doesn't rival hers is still very real. Freeing a hand from her coffee cup she reaches out for his muscular shoulder, grateful as always to have such a powerhouse on her side.

"Javi do you remember Melanie Cavanaugh at all?" She asks him.

The Latino detective squints his eyes and shakes his head.

"Human popsicle dumped at a construction site shortly after Castle started shadowing me." She prompts, knowing that not every cop has her almost perfect recollection of the victims' names – some of them remember by what they mentally tagged them as – the gallows humor – much better.

Esposito smiles now at the memory.

"Yeah. Yeah I do. Missing five years wasn't she? Found in a freezer at a storage lock-up in Queens and them dumped by the storage facilities manager to avoid any bad press."

Kate nods.

"Yeah – exactly, that's her. The opening prologue of that manuscript . . . the first character mentioned – her name is 'Melanie Cavanaugh'. The book's name is 'Heat Lost'."

Espo sighs heavily.

"Beckett – that's way to thin. The last thing I want is to be the one to shoot you down, but Castle tweeted about your cases from the moment he started following you. Anyone who was interested in either of you would know you worked together on that case. And 'Heat Lost' . . . I mean its not like his being missing is a secret."

Beckett nods.

"Javi you can't think I don't know that. I'm not totally broken – at least not yet. There's more . . . something else in that first paragraph that no-one outside of the four of us would know about. Something that when combined with the name 'Melanie Cavanaugh,' tells me it's him."

Espo's eyes narrow.

"What?" He asks, unable for now to mask the skeptical tone that is all over his voice.

Undeterred Kate continues. "The morning that we caught that case I told Castle we'd have to try and ID Melanie by combing through the departments missing person's database. This is before Lanie was able to provide us with an ID. He was so excited, like a giant kid at Christmas. He thought we had some sort of fancy facial-recognition software he could play with, and then we surprised the hell out of him when we revealed how we had to do it the hard way. Don't you remember? You and Ryan pulled all the missing person's files we had, and we all sat in the conference room with them spread out on the table before us. Castle was so horrified when he saw the size of the pile – said there were 'a lot of missing people' and then we got into a discussion about we usually managed to find them eventually one way or another. But the important fact here is that you and Ryan told him about one of the ones we've never solved – not even now - the girl who simply vanished into thin air from a side-walk. She turned a corner while her boyfriend was on his cell phone and only a couple of feet behind her."

Javier pales. The comparison between that and Castle's own disappearing act is not lost on him at all.

"Dana Sullivan." He tells her.

It's not case anyone could forget.

"I told him about Dana Sullivan and Castle told me no-one vanishes into thin air – that there's always a story that makes everything make sense."

Kate breathes easier with his recollection.

"Yeah well the second name in that book Espo, the one right next to Melanie's . . . its hers."

"No way." He tells her.

Kate nods and stands, suddenly feels stronger.

"Yes way Espo. And once we start reading they'll be more things like that in it I guarantee you; facts that only we and Castle would know. And I want that manuscript dusted for prints – immediately. . . hopefully Rick's will be all over it and we'll have something concrete, something very real to build upon."

Esposito smiles at her and she sees it in his dark eyes now too. What she's feeling, that spark . . .a spark of purpose – of hope and it carries the pair of them back to work.


	5. Chapter 5

**Thanks for the continued support dearest readers . . . one more before the weekend.  
**

* * *

**Chapter Five:** I'm tired of learning life the hard way.

* * *

_Five months ago:_

* * *

"You're who?" Castle says stunned, blue eyes wide with incomprehension. It's not that he hasn't wondered about this moment, written it for himself a thousand times (if only in his head) – but now that the moment is actually here . . . the circumstances are just too . . . bizarre. Even for Richard Castle.

"I said I'm your father." The older man repeats. He doesn't smile at Castle . . . instead he just watches, his expression painted heavily with contrived neutrality and betraying exactly . . . nothing.

The writer feels his stomach begin to cramp up again and he winces in pain. The heat out here is beginning to become a bother, and the drugs still disappearing from his system are gleefully playing with him as they depart. Hurts.

And he's struggling, completely spiraling as even his vivid imagination cannot in this moment write him a scenario where any of this makes a lick of sense.

So Castle closes his eyes for moment, blocks it all out and concentrates simply on just trying to breathe through the most immediate demand – the stomach pain.

He feels his father's hand clasp his elbow again but he shakes it off.

"Don't. I'm fine." He lies.

Gabor isn't buying it.

"You're in pain – I'm sorry. You should really eat – it will help. So if you feel up to a little walk – please . . . why don't you come with me?"

Another cramp almost doubles Rick over.

"What – you mean I'm not imprisoned to my room?" Castle grinds out between his teeth as he gasps through the agony and forces his eyes open again, his eyebrow climbing with the sarcasm.

Richard Gabor shakes his head with a soft smile.

"No. No need my son. Even if you leave the villa – trust me there is nowhere for you to go. So you will be free to come and go here as you please."

The cramp subsides and Castle unsteady straightens up, his face clammy.

'I'd like to go home if it's all the same to you." The writer replies.

The soft smile on the other man's face disappears as quickly as it came, replaced once more by that painfully blank mask, eyes closed off and divulging nothing. There is however the faintest trace of regret in his voice when he speaks next.

"If that were possible I would return you to your loved ones in a day. I'm sorry Richard . . . but you'll have to content yourself on being my guest for the foreseeable future." He turns to go.

"Come." He says as he turns again at the door. "Come and eat and then you can explore wherever you like or return to your room if you wish to rest some more. Your strength will return with nourishment and you have my word there will be no more need for narcotics."

Castle shakes his head.

"No. You need to start talking Gabor . . . I need to understand what the hell is going on here. Why can't I go home?"

The other man sighs, but comes back into the room until he stands just inside the balcony.

"Come. Eat. We'll talk. I'll tell you as much as I can Richard. It won't be everything I'm afraid . . . there are some things you are safer not understanding. But I'll tell you enough that you'll comprehend what compelled me to bring you here."

The author barks out a laugh.

"Bring me here. You make it sound like a vacation. You abducted me . . . and for all I remember you hurt Kate to do it. I don't want to go anywhere with you."

His father's blue eyes darken, and Castle finds it creepy, to see his own eyes in another man's face. His captor hesitates, and Castle swears he can almost sense an anger rising in Gabor – as if he's completely unused to having any instruction disobeyed.

"She is not my first concern but Kate is safe this way too. And that's what you want most isn't it Richard? Even at the expense of _your _life if necessary – to ensure her continued well-being?"

The writer's stomach twists but he nods.

"More than anything." He admits. "My mother, Kate and Alexis, that's it – nothing else matters." He adds.

Gabor inclines his head.

"You have no reason to believe me – especially considering the circumstances, but I do understand Richard. I know what it means to be willing to make _any_ sacrifice for those you love." And for a tiny moment Castle sees it in his father's eyes – that same absolute tenacity in love that exists within him – but then it's gone.

His father continues. "They are all three safer right now because of this . . . trust me, at least until I've explained. Now come and eat, over food I'll begin to fill you in." He says.

The older man turns to go once more and Castle debates, but in the end he sees the futility in further protest at this time and so he reluctantly follows him. Gabor is right about at least one thing – the author knows he'll feel so much better after some food and if he tries to make a break for freedom from here he's going to need all his strength to do it.

Leaving the bedroom that Castle woke up in behind them, Gabor leads the younger man down a short corridor that opens up and becomes a landing - connecting the room to the rest of the house. A large semi-spiral stone staircase winds down before them to the floor below and both men descend it. Once they are on the ground floor of the villa, Gabor shows Castle into a spacious kitchen, with huge wooden doors flung wide open, leaving almost one entire side of the room looking towards the ocean and a patio beyond. A large ancient table and four chairs sit under the shade of a semi-circle of olive trees, helpfully blocking the seating area from the heat of a direct sun.

Castle looks around at the functional but decidedly un-modern room. Flagstone tiles and white stone walls, furniture that looks a hundred years old - his writer's imagination is just whirling. Everything about this place – from the sun, to the smells, the feel of the villa itself, well it reminds him of . . .

"Are we in Greece?" He blurts out suddenly.

Gabor turns to him looking somewhat surprised and then he nods.

"First guess – I'm impressed." He says, with a genuine smile, before he ignores the shocked, make that totally incredulous look on his son's face and turns back to pulling bread, meats and cheeses from the kitchen's large refrigerator.

"Seriously . . . Greece?" Castle says again, as he wanders out to the table on the patio and slumps – stunned – onto a worn-smooth wooden chair, resting his head in his hands. Another stomach cramp comes – a lesser one this time but as it hits him he lowers his head still further to the surface of the table moaning softly. He feels so abjectly miserable, and he's never been any good at not feeling well. He wants Kate . . . wants her soft strong hands and her gentle soothing voice and he misses her . . . he just - he _misses_ her . . . so much - already.

Again the pain passes and the writer forces himself to pull it together.

_Get him talking . . . get the information. _He thinks. _Then you can start to formulate a plan._

"Greece." He mumbles into the table top. "Okay . . . how?"

Gabor doesn't answer, but a plate with a generous hunk of bread and cheese on it is placed before him. It smells good and Castle lifts his head, starving now he comes to think about it. He eyes his companion warily as Gabor takes a seat next to him and places another plate loaded with cold cuts of meat and olives in the center of the table before them.

"Greece." He confirms again. "Now . . . eat."

Castle digs in, makes a show of proving that he's strong enough to continue this conversation already, and Gabor seems to sense his son's frustration level rising because he begins to speak, to offer information to placate him.

"Your Detective Beckett . . . she's . . . extraordinary – just like your mother is . . . I have to give you that."

Castle bristles at the mention of Martha even as he's flooded with some sort of dumb pride that this man he's never met approves of his choice in a girlfriend. Ridiculous. He doesn't need anyone's approval and his mother . . . what was she ever to this man?

"My mother was a one-night stand – I'm flattered you remember her." He says defensively.

Gabor looks angry.

"I understand why you've been brought up to think that Richard – why even your mother must think . . . and she _knows _how we loved each other in that one night we were given. But don't presume on _my_ memories young man . . . I never forget anything . . . and the last thing I would ever wish is to forget even one second spent with her."

Castle is shocked by the depth of Gabor's declaration.

"You loved my mother?" He asks quietly. "But you only knew her a day." He says.

Gabor nods nonetheless.

"I love her still." He says gently.

Castle looks confused.

"Then why would you . . . I mean you never saw her again . . . you've never seen me . . . what possible explanation can you have for that and still claim to care about her?" He demands.

Gabor sighs.

"And this is where we start the explanation . . . from there to here . . . its all one and the same."

"What does that even mean?" Castle asks.

"It means Richard . . . that I'm CIA."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six: **Your Mountains ain't made out of stone.

* * *

Kate sits chewing on a pen cap at her desk, her legs bouncing with nervous energy beneath it and her seat constantly swiveling slightly as she finds it beyond impossible to stay still.

Detective Ryan has taken thirty 'randomly' pulled pages of 'Heat Lost' to the print lab on the second floor and been told to babysit both them, and the technician while they're dusted for Castle's prints. That was an hour ago and Beckett feels like she's beginning to lose her mind while she's twiddling her thumbs and waiting for an answer.

She'd really wanted to take them down and have them put a giant rush on it herself - but Ryan insisted, and she could tell by the fiercely protective look on his handsome boyish face that if there was to be bad news coming – then he needed to be the one to break it to her.

Quiet insistence – its Ryan all over and in the end Kate had simply smiled her agreement and let the young Irishmen do it for her.

The remaining several hundred pages of the manuscript are sitting in front of her neatly stacked, hot pink post-it tags everywhere to indicate where the dusted pages should be returned too. She desperately just wants to start reading it all the way through, but Esposito is seated beside her like a watchdog and he's forcing her to wait.

Kate understands his reasoning – she does. 'Wait on the prints; wait on something incontrovertible before you invest in it any more emotionally' he'd said - watching out for her the way he always does. And while she can tell he's as excited as she is about the Melanie Cavanaugh/Dana Sullivan connection in the prologue – he's still maintaining his insistence on caution and acting as devils advocate 'just in case'.

She could be irritated – but she's just far too touched.

Her eyes catch Javi's, "Why doesn't the damn lab phone?" She protests. 'It's been an hour already – surely they must have some kind of answer by now?"

Esposito doesn't say anything, just looks thoughtful – and now that she's noticing - worried.

'Beckett . . . maybe there's just nothing there to find." He says quietly, and as gently as he can.

She's about to retort but instead she hears the elevator ding and witnesses Kevin Ryan literally spring out of the doors. He's breathless – as if he's been running and her stomach twists . . . _please _she thinks . . . _please. . . _just be the news she's praying for.

"Well?" She demands, as Kevin reaches the side of her desk and she automatically springs up out of her chair – somehow needing to be on her feet for this.

Ryan takes a deep breath and Kate's heart stutters, but then he smiles and her heart beats again.

"Castle's prints are there Beckett – it's confirmed. In fact his prints are all over it . . . and I made them double check every single page - the book is definitely his."

It's the first piece of good news in five months and Kate suddenly wobbles on her heels before she sinks back down into her chair. She looks up at Kevin with her eyes shining suspiciously.

"Oh my God." She whispers. "Guys . . . I think a part of Rick just came home."

Ryan and Esposito exchange a look . . . then a nervous laugh of relief and then as Beckett greedily reaches out to tug the rest of the book to her – behind her head they 'high-five'.

* * *

"You can't be serious . . . Sir."

Beckett stares at Captain Victoria Gates with something akin to abject horror in her eyes.

She'd known reporting on the events of this morning to the twelfth's skipper was necessary, and frankly since her return to the precinct she's made quite damn sure _never_ to leave the woman out-of-the-loop on anything . . . but still, Kate never for a moment would have said a word to her boss if she'd thought the end result of it would be this.

This _cannot _be allowed to happen . . . _she _has to follow this lead. _She_ has to be the one in control of it . . . she can't just . . . _will not_ just . . . hand it over.

_There is no way in hell._

Captain Gates' mouth firms into a thin line as Kate questions her authority, but on the inside she actually hates this every bit as much as her detective does. Beckett doesn't know – and Gates doesn't feel like telling her - but she did go to bat with the FBI on Beckett's behalf about this. Still, the bottom line is what it is, and she didn't get to be the captain of a New York City police precinct without a very firm grasp of policies and procedures. (Although in this case it feels more like politics and procedures but still.) In the end - Richard Castle's disappearance/suspected abduction is a federal case, and therefore _any _new evidence that comes to light belongs to them and must be turned over to them with all due speed.

So as much as she hates it – Gates stands her ground.

"I am sorry detective – but this is out of my hands. That manuscript has your missing partner's prints all over it. Its evidence and the Feds want it so you are hereby ordered to turn it over to the New York missing person's office forthwith. The SAC in charge of the investigation is already sending someone over to collect it." Gates says with finality.

Beckett's eyes close on a pure moment of despair and Gates' heart breaks a little for her.

"I'm truly sorry Kate." She says more gently. "But you'll just have to trust them to follow up on it for you – as hard as I know it must be."

Kate's eyes snap open again and she shakes her head.

"Hard?" She spits out. "Captain this is a disaster. That manuscript . . . it's my only link to him right now – and there are references in there – things that the FBI will never see because they're private references to cases and people that Castle and I worked on together. Now that may or may not have any bearing on where Rick is right now, but if it does . . . if there is a even a remote chance that it can be used to find him - how are they going to get anywhere with it when they won't have a clue what they're looking at?"

Gates sighs.

"Kate – sit down."

Beckett goes to shake her head again but the sudden inclination of her boss's eyebrow is enough to stop her. Miserably she collapses into the chair opposite her Captain's desk and buries her face in her hands.

This just can't be happening. There is no way she can even bear the _thought_ of parting with Castle's novel – just the idea of it has her feeling like she's losing him all over again. It's already become the one bright spot in her existence in the matter of hours it's been here – a tangible, physical connection to him somehow. And now she's being asked to give it up? That is just . . . impossible - she's doesn't care how much trouble this causes for her, but losing control over that book and possibly her last link to Rick is neither a chance she's willing to take or an option she can live with.

"I won't hand it over Captain." She says with conviction. "I can't. Please understand that. That manuscript is . . . "Beckett breaks off, her voice breaking and she shudders as she ruthlessly suppresses the urge to breakdown. After a moment Kate finds her voice again – for Castle. "The book is all I have of him right now Sir . . . and it might be my only chance to find him." She says.

"Detective. . ."

"No." Beckett interrupts.

"No Sir. I'm truly sorry if this causes _you _problems – truly. And I'm honestly very grateful to you for allowing me to come back. But if I have to resign again right now and walk out that door with that manuscript in my hands then I will – and I guarantee you that there is not a cop in this precinct who will act to stop me." She says confidently. "I am sorry – I am, but I won't give it up to the Feds . . . I just can't."

Gates breathes heavily for a moment in the wake of Beckett's outburst. Her face unreadable, her dark eyes holding Kate's gaze assessingly.

It's clear to Gates that her lead detective isn't messing around here and that she's fully cognizant of the potential charges the FBI will lay against her for interfering in their investigation. It isn't any kind of news to the captain that Beckett will stop at nothing to locate her missing partner. That she'll give up anything to have the man she loves restored to her. In fact Gates is willing to bet her own badge on the fact that it's only the hope of that – of finding the writer alive – that gets Kate out of bed in the morning. And dammit she actually wants to help . . .

"Copy it." She tells Kate.

Beckett looks startled.

"Now that we've already established Castle must have actually had contact with it – that he most likely did author it as his prints are there . . . you don't need the original Beckett . . .so copy it . . . and get the others to help you. If you can have it done within the hour before the FBI gets over here to collect it . . . then they don't need to know about that – now do they?"

Beckett swallows her surprise. It still breaks her heart to think of handing over the actual pages Castle touched – typed with his own hands - to the Feds . . . but Gates is right. She doesn't actually need the original . . . that's served its purpose in establishing Castle as the origin of it. A copy of it will work just as well for the rest.

This is a reprieve.

"Permission to get right on that Sir?" Kate asks with a relieved smile.

Gates nods and smiles back . . . "Permission granted . . . and Kate?"

"Yes Sir?"

Gates' smile widens.

"If an hour isn't enough let me know . . . I'll stall them for you."

And with this Kate manages to smile back.

"Yes Sir."

In the bullpen Kate gathers her team.

"Ryan . . . Espo." She calls, both her partners look up.

"Grab Castle's manuscript and follow me."

.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Thank you so much for the continued support people - its so very much appreciated. And its my hope that you'll all be even more confused and intrigued by the end of this chapter . . . .so without further ado.  
**

* * *

**Chapter Seven:** It seems you want me just to watch me fall.

* * *

_Five months ago:_

* * *

"_It means Richard . . . that I'm CIA."_

* * *

There's just a loud silence in the wake of Gabor's statement, as all the sounds of nature around them blur to mere white noise.

And if Castle was feeling stunned before . . . waking up both abducted _and_ half way around the world in the company of a father he's never met . . . well then he can't quite come up with a suitable adjective to describe his current state now.

CIA?

Seriously?

_No. Freaking. Way!_

There's a small boy somewhere inside him that's jumping up and down and beyond excited because he's always – without fail – pictured the man who fathered him as being something pretty cool. And okay sure, it was a coping mechanism . . . a child's coping mechanism for when having it constantly pointed out to you that you were 'fatherless' got old. And maybe he turned that into a facade of being 'totally blase' about the 'not knowing' but still . . . and it maybe true that spurred him to become the best possible father he could be – but still – that small boy is jumping nevertheless.

And then of course there's a younger – but adult – version of himself – one who was once pretty crazy about a poisonous CIA agent named 'Sophia Turner' who suddenly feels a tiny bit redeemed because she told him one thing at least that apparently is true.

But then there's the current version of Rick Castle . . . the one who knows that all he ever wants is to be by Kate Beckett's side and it's this version of himself who finds his voice here.

It's this version that's in control.

"And how does that have _anything_ to do with me?" He demands.

Gabor sighs and points at the food in front of his son.

"Eat Richard." He says.

Castle shakes his head. "Stop telling me what to do and start talking. You said you brought me here because 'they' were going to kill me." He states, using air quotes around the word 'they' as thunderclouds gather in his eyes.

"Now you're asking me to believe that not only did you love my mother . . . but that you're CIA?"

Gabor nods.

"So tell me how that's relevant Gabor? Tell me _why_ someone wants me dead and _who_ the hell are they? And how do you know about it for crying out loud?" Castle's voice is rising with each word and then something else occurs to him and the pitch escalates still further. "Is it something to do with Kate's mother's murder? Is that it? Huh Gabor. Are you a part of that?" The writer demands.

Gabor shakes his head but interestingly enough doesn't look surprised by the question. In fact if Castle had to label the look in eyes – he'd say the older man looks closer to horrified.

"No." He replies calmly. "Although I cannot tell you that I'm not aware of her case – because in following your career it invariably came up. But I have no involvement in it . . . even if some of the players that do are known to me."

"What . . . "

Gabor holds up his hand to stop Castle's question in its track.

"Don't ask who or how or what I know about it. Any knowledge I imparted to you would violate the delicate truce keeping Kate currently safe. Trust me Richard . . . and don't go there."

Rick bites his lip in a borrowed gesture from Beckett.

"So Kate _is _safe?" He clarifies – totally unable to _not_ ask.

His father nods.

"For now – yes, as I already told you . . . it's you that's currently in danger."

Castle sighs.

"From whom?" He repeats again. "Why?"

"In time Richard . . . in time." His father replies. "But first . . . well I've waited a long time – forty years in fact to be able to tell you that I'm sorry – my son. For not being there – not for you and not for your mother either. If I could have been a part of your lives . . . if I could have made another choice . . . please understand that nothing would have made me happier than to have had you both."

Castle eyes Gabor warily. He wants to steer the conversation right back to the apparently imminent threat to his life – but there is just something about the look of raw honesty on his father's face. For the first time the man's 'deadly' aura is slipping and behind it glimpses of the real person are starting to emerge. His sorrow is genuine . . . although forty years too late - but ever the writer Castle finds he cannot suppress his need to know – he wants the story - the fatherless child within him needs it.

"How did you meet my mother?" He asks, going with the flow and accepting the topic of conversation for the moment. He waits patiently, going back to filling his empty stomach with food.

Richard Gabor smiles . . . "At the theatre." He replies.

_Of course._

"Martha was the ingénue of Broadway back then, beautiful, vibrant and insanely talented. Gifted – just gifted and she had this light about her – it just . . . it pulled you in. I'd gone to see her in three plays before I had the courage to wait for her at the stage door one day - after a matinee. And I'd tried to talk myself out of it believe me – knew the heartbreak I was risking. But that's the thing about your mother Richard – she was just everything I wanted and I couldn't stay away."

Castle smiles inwardly thinking of Kate . . . oh he can relate.

"So what happened?" He asks. "When you met her?"

Gabor looks wistful . . . and it's a truly strange and out of place emotion on his chiseled face.

"Love at first sight I think – for both of us. I asked her to have a late lunch with me and she agreed. We spent the afternoon drinking coffee in SOHO, and I got her to tell me everything about herself – and the more she shared with me – the more in love with her I became. Those hours spent with her – simply talking . . . I would give anything to have _just_ that again."

His father falls silent. So Castle prompts him for more.

"And then?" He asks.

"She went back to the theatre for the evening performance, and she arranged it so I could watch her from the wings. She was magical, and when the performance was over . . . "

Gabor looks a little awkward.

"You spent the night with her." Castle fills in for him.

His father nods. "The night . . . yes. A single night in which to love a lifetime."

Castle startles at the choice of phrase, hears his mother's voice telling him the exact same thing. He's never forgotten it because its pretty much _all_ she's ever told him about the man who fathered him. And at times he's resented her for that – for what seemed like a lie while she kept both the man and the truth a secret from him.

"Why just a night?" He asks his father now. "If you were both as in-love as you claim . . . why only a night?"

The wistfulness on Gabor's face instantly disappears, and an old resignation replaces it.

"Spies aren't supposed to fall in love Richard. Your mother was becoming well known . . . she had such a bright future ahead of her – and I had nothing more than that night to offer. Only by completely abandoning her could I protect her from what I was destined to become and the enemies I was destined to make. I had done enough damage – been selfish when I gave into my desire for her . . . selfish and wrong and yet when I look at you . . . and when I remember her . . . I find that while I am sorry . . . I cannot find it anywhere within me to regret it."

Gabor meets and holds his son's wary gaze.

"You don't need me to be, and I cannot take any credit for you . . . but I am so proud of you anyway." Gabor continues. "Your whole life I've watched you from afar my son. Silently and secretly watched you grow . . . enjoyed your successes and found myself so achingly proud of the person you've become. Martha raised a fine man – a good man."

"A man who wants to go home Gabor."

The spy sighs and shakes his head.

"I have done very little to help you in your life Richard – have truly served you best by staying away. So please trust that what you want – I want for you – but only when you are no longer in any danger can I let you go."

The writer pushes to his feet, paces away in frustration. And suddenly he recalls Kate's reaction to his efforts to protect her and he turns back to face his father, with her words falling from his lips.

"It's _my_ life Gabor. _Mine_. You don't get to decide. You have no right to be treating me like I'm some sort of child – even if I am yours." He says indignantly.

"You are. And going up against the ones who would harm you - you are too."

Castle jaw clenches, a helpless anger rising inside him.

"And now we're back to that aren't we? Back to this threat you insist you're acting to protect me from – whether that protection is desired or not hmmm? So who wants me dead? Who? Tell me?"

There is a long moment of silence, and in the end the spy ends it by asking a question.

"Tell me something." Gabor replies. "What do you remember about a Mexican drug dealer named Cesar Valez?"

_Cesar Valez?_

The writer's face blanks, memories scrambling . . . and then it comes to him.

"Yeah I remember him." He confesses. "It was the case I so stupidly worked with . . . "

Gabor interrupts.

"Ethan Slaughter."


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight: **These words they strike like lightening.

* * *

They make four copies of the manuscript in the end. The first in a blinding flurry of a rush as they divide it up between the three of them – Beckett, Ryan and Esposito all disappearing to separate floors of the precinct to copy approximately one hundred and forty pages each, on three different photocopiers to save time. They make it back to Gates' office with the original literally seven minutes before the FBI agent dispatched to collect it arrives. (The other three copies they make later – one for each of them plus a spare just in case.)

The special agent from missing persons is aloof and cold as he takes the precious cargo from the twelfth's captain's hands. And despite Gates' imperious demand to be kept apprised of any leads the Feds discover as a result of it – the man departs without acknowledging any debt to the police department or its officers as he leaves them behind.

Kate's been on a roller-coaster all day now, and holding her own valiantly against the twists and turns and drops and highs. But the dirty look the Fed shoots her as the elevator doors close on him, Castle's precious book tucked under his arms – it's the final straw that's just too much for the dark-haired detective today, and she finally breaks down.

Esposito's been running interference for her, been her shield this far, but in this moment the sight of Kate so broken just ruins him. He turns to Ryan helplessly - the plea effortlessly visible in his dark eyes and therefore it's Kevin who almost scoops Beckett up out of the chair behind her desk and half drags half carries her into the break room.

He closes the doors and then closes the blinds, hiding Beckett's melt-down from prying eyes before he comes to sit beside her, his hand finding her shoulder.

"Let it out." He whispers softly to her. "Just let it out Beckett . . . no shame in that."

The young Irishmen digs in his suit pocket for the cloth handkerchief his wife always makes him carry – he hands it over wordlessly, his stomach pitching when Beckett grabs for it solely to hide her eyes.

Her too-thin shoulders are shaking but she's remarkably quiet and it unnerves Ryan to see her expending such a huge amount of energy as she fights to hold so much of her anguish inside. He's never doubted – not for several years now - that Kate Beckett had feelings for Richard Castle – and he was so happy for them when they finally got together. But somewhere deep inside him he realizes that he's always assumed that maybe Castle loved Beckett more – just because the author is so open, so clearly has such a massive heart.

But it's blinding clear now he was wrong about it.

It's been blindingly obvious – now that he comes to really think about it – for all these last five months.

Ryan's beginning to see that Kate's slipping, losing more ground by the day, as little bit by little bit Castle's absence is destroying her . . . the person she once was vanishing slowly before his eyes.

He hates it.

How are they supposed to stand witness to it as she dies by increments of a shattered heart?

"Kate." He shakes her shoulder, shakes her hard until she looks at him.

"We're going to find Castle – tell me you believe that." He demands, and there is not a trace of doubt or a hint of placating in his tone.

She blinks as she looks at him; tears sitting on her lush eyelashes, dampness on the planes of her face. She studies his features intently – seems to almost be searching for herself in his gaze – and then she hiccups . . . and miraculously she smiles.

"I know." She whispers, taking a deep and shuddering breath. "I still believe it Ryan . . . I do."

Kevin smiles back, relieved as her shoulders straighten and she exerts the force of her will, for now at least forcing the broken parts of herself to hold together.

"It's just . . . "Her voice is shaky though, and that's all she gets out before she bows her head and scrunches up her eyes.

"It's just that the dumb FBI are worse than useless and those pages they've taken away so callously belonged to him." Ryan says for her.

Her bent head nods.

"Gates' is right – we don't need the original – but . . . I wanted it. I still want it . . . I need to hold what he held in his hands Kev . . . I need to touch what he did. And giving that up . . . it kills me."

Ryan takes a shallow breath, hurting for her so badly he wants to scream. He searches desperately for something to say, someway to lend her the strength to get back up and do this.

"Look I know it hurts Beckett . . . but we have his words okay. And we know what we're looking for in them – if there's actually anything there to find. It took time for Castle to write that book . . . time and lots of it . . . so we can be hopeful that he's alive – and that's the _best_ news okay. His words are going to get us all through this Kate – I promise."

She's silent for a long moment but then she gets back on her feet, directing a small but genuine smile at him.

"You know what." She says. "You're right . . . isn't that what his words have always done?"

And Ryan smiles back - nodding.

* * *

Castle's case of course - isn't theirs, but under the circumstances Captain Gates gives the three of them the whole day to work on it anyway. It's unexpected and its good of her, and at first Kate's surprised - but then she sees it in her bosses dark eyes and realizes this is the only way Gates' can give the finger to the FBI – and so with a tilt of her head that signals her appreciation – she gets back to it.

First things being first, they jointly decide its best simply to read. It sounds obvious but it's so very tempting to just start pouring over the four hundred and seventeen pages full of words and start their hunt for clues. They're afraid they'll miss things if they go that route though, and after all its the 'story' . . . its got to be the _story_ itself that's supposed to help them.

So they've all agreed to start there.

Kate reads more quickly than the boys – not as quickly as Rick can – but certainly fast enough, and she's enthralled by the book within minutes and four chapters in before she knows it.

She looks up from the photocopied pages and for a brief moment - her heart pounding in her chest - has this difficulty separating the fiction from her reality. Every damn sentence feels like Castle is trying to tell her something, the story feeling so eerily familiar that it somehow barely feels like a 'novel' at all. She takes a breath and tells herself she's being foolish, and she goes back to it.

Nikki is called to a late night crime scene and finds not one but two bodies headed for the M.E's slab. Melanie Cavanaugh and Dana Sullivan - both shot dead . . . and at first glance by each other. The murder weapons appear to be on the scene and gunshot residue tests prove positive on each victim's right hand.

But then of course the 'Castlesque' twists begin – and she can't stop her smile – it's just all so damn _him._

Dana and Melanie have apparently never met each other – and neither has a motive to want the other one dead. They share no friends or acquaintances, don't appear to have any easily uncovered enemies and as both are single and childless – no one seems to benefit from their deaths. It gets more confusing once the ballistics comes back and it turns out neither gun found at the scene is a match.

Nikki and 'Roach' are then getting nowhere fast, as the interviews and potential leads dry up and it seems their case might end up unsolved. Until of course it promptly happens again.

Two more bodies in an alley late at night – each once more appears to have shot the other, only this time one is a man and the other a woman. And to add to the confusion, both of the bodies have this time been stripped of any identification.

The three detectives are stumped and spend the next two chapters trying desperately to chase down their latest victims ID's. There are no fingerprints in the system, no DMV records, and no potential DNA matches. No one has reported either of them missing, and no one calls in to identify them when the department goes public for assistance.

Four bodies - and a case that just keeps getting both weirder and colder.

But then to make matters horribly worse for Nikki, Rook – whose away on assignment in Columbia goes missing.

Kate gets to this part, almost at the end of the fourth chapter and her heart is triple timing in her chest. She's almost afraid to read on – and the way Castle has written Nikki's fears for Rook – how it echoes all of hers for him – its like he knows exactly what she's been going through without him . . . and she can't describe it – how this makes her feel.

She pauses in her reading, takes a deep breath and then she presses on.

Nikki is spiraling and caught between á desperate desire to go and hunt for Rook, and staying where she is and doing her job - then out of nowhere she gets a text message from Rook's phone – containing two names, nothing else. She tries to call him back - but his number is disconnected.

The names don't mean anything to Nikki Heat - but Kate Beckett cannot say the same.

'Thomas Gage' and 'Tracy McGrath' and its at this point that Kate drops the pages onto her desk, and almost hyper-ventilating now as she takes a break.

She's pacing in circles when Javier notices.

"Beckett?" He asks concerned, nudging Ryan until he gets his partner's attention.

"Kate . . . what is it – what's wrong?" Ryan says.

Beckett stares at them, she tries to articulate.

"There's a second set of names in the book – and I can see it – they're going to belong to the second set of bodies."

Espo turns pages and hunts for the part Beckett has clearly reached before him.

"Okay." He says, jabbing his fingers and repeating them when he finds it. "You recognize those names too?" He asks looking confused.

Beckett nods.

"Yeah." She replies shakily. "Oh God . . . yes I do."

"And that's bad?" Ryan asks carefully.

Kate shrugs, "I don't know – I don't know . . . but the last time I heard those names . . . Castle and I were working with the CIA.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Man this chapter has kicked my ass up and down and all over the place. It turns out exposition – a whole chapter full of it - is _really_ hard to write and can both kill a plot's momentum and bog the story down in details. However – necessary evil – so here you go . . . and please tell me this works. Oh and before I forget - I didn't have time to reply to all of the reviewers individually last update - I'm SO sorry. You take the time to tell me things I should find the time to acknowledge it. I WILL do better - pinky promise.  
**

* * *

**Chapter Nine: **When all your nights are starless.

* * *

_Five months ago. . . _

Castle sits on the sand alone . . . he's fifteen feet from the water when the waves wash out, but when they wash back in again they're barely four feet from his toes. He kinda expects a larger wave to swamp him in the relatively near future – and as a metaphor that's absolutely working for him this morning.

It's cooler today. Still sunny and a hell of a lot warmer than New York currently is, but there are clouds in the sky above him – they scud across the sun and block it out in regular intervals and suddenly the beach gets colder and more forbidding – and somehow that feels appropriate too.

His whole world feels so off kilter . . . and each hour without Kate – emotionally it feels like drowning.

The author's mind is both over-taxed and working over-time – and for a man whose mind is usually as active and as imaginative as his that's really saying something. He feels like he's caught somewhere between 'a-complete-daze' and 'a-total-downward-spiral'; his thoughts chasing each other across the vast landscape of his mind, a maelstrom of chaos that's almost too much to take in.

Because the writer blames himself now – now that he's been told enough to visualize the big picture. He can't help but see how he inadvertently not only stacked the damn dominoes – but was the one to push the first one down.

Everything else - from the need his father felt – stepping into his life in order to save it, to the desperate emptiness that threatens to swallow him with being so far away from Kate – to the devastation he knows his disappearance must be wreaking on those he loves – all of this it just snowballed from there.

This is because of him.

It was his stupid, stubborn pride that put them all here. His complete inability to just ask Kate a simple question in the wake of the Wall Street bombing– really, how hard is it to say '_why did you lie to me?' _ This is all because he was so damn afraid of her reasons – of the power she held so effortlessly over him. And yet - how could he ever have foreseen that his dumb ass idea to follow around a different cop would land him inside a nightmare there's no easy way to escape from?

'_Muses are to provide inspiration and right now I ain't getting any – so Detective Nikki Heat, meet Detective Slaughter.'_

God he wishes he'd been stronger – he wishes he'd never watched the television that morning.

One case – a couple of days – that's all he spent around Ethan Slaughter before he wised up. One tiny period of time spent with his head up his ass hiding – how unfair is it that one lapse in his judgment should lead to this?

Castle pushes himself up off of the sand, unable to just sit and think a moment longer. He feels compelled to move – walk – run even – just to go somewhere, yet now that he's on his feet - walking or running the beach is really all that's open to him . . . there's simply no where else for him to go.

Gabor hasn't locked him in his room or confined him to the villa because freedom is completely relative here. The spacious villa is one of only three stone buildings on a tiny island – the other two consisting of a boat house and a small cottage housing staff. A mile and half long by a mile wide, there are a couple of beaches and the rest is rocky hills and cliffs. As private islands in the Aegean go it should be a millionaires dream – but it's a prison in all actuality. Secret, accessible only by sea and legally belonging to a shady corporation that's a front for the Central Intelligence arm of the US government.

Castle stares at the sky – at the patches of blue between the clouds above him and the words write themselves across his vision – '_no where to run to and no where to hide.'_

Mainland Greece is a good fifty miles away and the closest inhabited island is a ten mile swim – if he even knew which direction to head in. And to truly make it secure, Gabor has sent all the boats that had been stationed here away – so Castle is totally trapped – and it seems he's just going to have to get used to it.

He wants to scream in exasperation, throw things – punch somebody, but instead the writer heads down the sand and lets the water swirl coldly around his toes. He's trapped and Kate-less and who the hell is he kidding – not thinking about it? That's impossible . . . it just keeps going around and around in his head.

Yesterday, when Richard Gabor had laid out the story for him – frankly, Castle thought it was so insanely far-fetched a tale, that even he couldn't spin it and make somebody buy it. Yet it's the truth – his father isn't lying to him about it – of that one thing the writer is just horribly sure.

A powerful Mexican drug lord wants him dead – because it's _the perfect way_ to make Kate Beckett pay for the loss of everything Cesar Valez once held dear – namely his family and his high-level position within the Mexican Mafia.

Killing her – it just wouldn't be enough – not when Cesar's wife and children have been taken from him, slaughtered in one of the worst ways imaginable. Oh no, the drug lord's pride _demands_ the need to see her to _suffer_ until he's tired of watching it and then when he's convinced she's truly broken – only then does Cesar plan on revealing to her that he's the one behind her pain and _why._

Because of Kate, Cesar Valez exhibited a perceived weakness – and the _perception _of weakness is just not tolerated in Valez' line of work. The hardened bad-ass drug lord stood toe to toe in front of witnesses with Kate Beckett and meekly held his tongue while she proceeded to threaten him.

Something she would never had had cause to do if not for Castle.

Still, maybe that moment of silence – that lack of threats from Valez wouldn't have mattered – except that months after the fact Ethan Slaughter out-ted Valez about it, and not just to his own people – oh no. Ethan broadcast every detail of that conversation; broadcast it loud and proud - to the Westies, the Cazadores, the Trench Town posse even the local Italian mafia.

Slaughter regaled them all with the juicy details about how the beautiful female cop had sent the drug lord home with a flea in his ear - he made Cesar look bad – really, really bad – so bad in fact that Valez barely escaped the fallout with his life, and had to pop off three of his highest ranking cohorts in an effort to save face. And Slaughter knew that's exactly what would happen – in fact he counted on it ending badly for Cesar. Counted on his demise to begin a complete fracturing of the Mexican cartel's leadership which would then result in a weakening of their hold on their territory and have all the other drug gangs in the city owing him a solid.

It worked brilliantly too, initially. Slaughter was making collars and calling in favors all over the map.

But the backfire? Massive.

Because Cesar Valez didn't die in the leadership revolt the way Slaughter had planned it - in fact he's been fighting dirty to win back his authority and hell bent on revenge ever since. And this is where it gets weird – where the plot – if this were a novel gets so much harder to sell; because in order to reclaim his power and his status, Cesar Valez has gone into business with the CIA. In exchange for a virtual license from them to smuggle both heroin and cocaine over the Mexican border and into the United States, Cesar provides them with intelligence about all the rival cartels.

Information that is proving to be an invaluable asset in the ongoing Mexican drug war; a bitter armed conflict between rival cartels fighting each other for regional control while the Mexican Government Forces battle somewhat hopelessly to dismantle them and the CIA tries to keep drugs off the streets.

As Gabor explained it to Rick – with the Mexican cartels currently controlling ninety percent of all the illicit drugs that enter the United States - that's billions of dollars in the hands of criminals on the line. So for the CIA, ignoring Cesar Valez and his percentage of those dollars, in return for potentially all the other bigger fry is a huge win and Valez gets the protection and the secret weapon of the CIA in his back pocket as his end of the deal. Its still a huge risk for Valez - the rival cartels don't yet know where all this damaging intelligence is coming from – if they did they'd desperately want him dead in order to shut him up.

But never is a man more dangerous than when he's got nothing of value to him left to lose. And for that – Cesar Valez blames Detectives Kate Beckett and Ethan Slaughter.

One of whom is dead – the other – must be made to suffer.

Ethan Slaughter has been taken out. Valez simply fed him bad information - placed him carefully in the wrong place at the wrong time during a shootout between the Cazadores and the Westies. And amid the chaos no one noticed when it was Valez himself who took the giant brutish cop down. The NYPD's infamous 'widow-maker' is no more.

And for the now ex-Detective Beckett's punishment – well Valez is consumed by a burning need to make her suffer far, far more. A bullet between the eyes would have simply been too kind.

He wants her to pay slowly – by taking away from her what has been taken away from him. What she cares about and values the most in the world - Richard Castle.

And this is where Richard Gabor steps in.

The CIA spy is Valez' agency liaison. In the midst of a nightmare there is this fortunate twist of fate for his secret son it turns out. A hardened, experienced, deadly and brutally ruthless spy jaded by more years in the trenches with scum than anyone should ever see - but nonetheless the only man the CIA trusted to keep Cesar both in the program and under surveillance.

Slaughter's murder happened before the CIA could act to prevent it – Castle's . . . well Gabor was forced to think and act very fast; to literally snatch his son from a dark Manhattan sidewalk - under his partner's nose and without any witnesses. And he had to accomplish it on the very same night Valez had planned to take the author's life – as the drug lord had put it – 'poetically.'

Cesar wanted maximum pain for Kate out of killing Castle – so the writer was going to die not only on the painful anniversary of Kate's mother's murder; but very literally 'in a hail of bullets'.


	10. Chapter 10

**Forgive me for this only getting a single update this week - real life and all that crap . . .  
**

**Chapter Ten: **I would do anything; I'm dying to live again.

* * *

_"I don't know – I don't know . . . but the last time I heard those names . . . Castle and I were working with the CIA._

* * *

Esposito and Ryan stare at her wordlessly for long moments – some strange combination of shock and resentment visible on both of their faces.

And yeah – she remembers how the guys were so left out of the loop on that case – and yeah she very vividly recalls just how much they hated it – they never made any secret about that. And even weeks later there were still odd moments of awkwardness between the four members of their team, the resentment taking its sweet time to dissipate completely.

Ryan is the first one to swallow it now as that resentment tries once again to rears its ugly head. He's the one who pushes them past it.

"Funny. Castle so loves his CIA theories – how strange this is going to be if it turns out now that they're the ones behind all this?"

Its true and enough to make the others smile – Castle himself would love this – if he were here.

Espo looks thoughtful.

"Okay – so he's deliberately pointed you at the CIA with this, but is it just a plot twist in the book itself. Some sort of homage to secrecy, like an 'in-joke' only a handful of people would ever get. Or – is this him _pointing you at the CIA_?" He says – looking to her for the clarification.

Beckett shakes her head helplessly. Her heart and her gut can't decide as yet – but her head – her head tells her it's the second one. That it's her partner _pointing her at the CIA._

"My guess . . . "She answers. "I'm gonna say the latter. A plot twist and an inside joke is one thing, but under these circumstances – Castle wouldn't be messing around. Hell I have no idea why information is even coming like this. If he can send us a communication – why not just make it a straight forward accounting of where the hell he is and what's going on? Why hide the information in a book - in a story? For God's sake he's risking it being missed." Her voice rises at the end with sheer frustration; both her hands tangle themselves in the wavy mass of her hair.

"Isn't it obvious? He simply can't have been given any other choice." Ryan says confidently, earnest blue gaze moving back and forth between his partners as if they're crazy for not seeing that. "If he could phone, or text or simply send us information directly – we all know he'd do it in a heartbeat and not because of us but because of his daughter. He'd never play games with Alexis . . . he'd know how she's faring with this. And you Kate – Castle would move mountains to make sure you knew he was safe. If there is any information here – if he's had to hide it – then he had no choice. And think about it – this was sent to Gina – so he even hid its true destination – even as he must have been hoping Gina would know his work well enough to see the manuscript was his and would therefore act to pass it along to us."

Espo nods.

"Yeah good point bro. And thankfully - she did."

Beckett is nodding in agreement, but then she noticeably pales as a somewhat scary thought occurs to her.

"Then it also follows that Rick isn't just trying to tell us who took him but he must be worried about who's looking for him?"

Ryan's eyes light up as he latches onto her thought.

"Yeah . . . yeah." He says thoughtfully. "Maybe that _is_ the reason for all the cloak and dagger here – maybe that's exactly _why _he has to hide so cleverly what he's trying to tell us? Because Castle's unsure of whom he can trust."

Tears prick at the back of Beckett's eyes and she paces pulling at her hair. On top of everything else she's been carrying for the last five months - suddenly the weight of responsibility on her now feels tripled.

And Castle's manuscript . . . both a lifeline . . . and a beautiful, doubled-edge sword.

She's on the one hand thrilled and relieved and happy – so happy to have some sort of proof that there is a good chance Rick is still alive – but on the other . . . with everything being so cryptic – what if she misses something? What if that something is vital? What if she lets him down? She can't let him down – she can't – she can't . . . she can't . . . she can't live without him. She _should _be able to – but the last few months have clearly proven to her that the bottom line is . . . _she cannot_.

Kate can feels her vision tunneling slightly as her heart rate suddenly elevates and the tension always present in her muscles these days begins to cause her fingers to twitch. Her respiration gets shallow . . . and then rapid, fear a rising tidal wave inside her and then she feels it . . . registers it - a strong hand on her arm.

Her vision clears quickly, and Kate looks to her left as Ryan's grasp on her forearm moves lower until he can hold her hand – almost crushing her smaller fingers in his tight, reassuring grip. He doesn't say anything – he just physically anchors her – and the panic recedes . . . as swiftly as it came it disappears back inside her, and she pushes it deep down, deep, deep down – her control returning.

She manages a small smile – nothing more than a mere upturning of one side of her mouth – but its enough to let Ryan know he can let her go now – that the panic has been shelved.

"What next?" Espo asks her quietly.

_She can't think – her thoughts are disjointed and just whirling._

So when she's mute just a fraction too long, it's Ryan who steps up again.

"We get back to reading this thing – all three of us. And we should be making notes, separately I think would be best. That way we can compare them in the morning or something – once we've all finished it, three views from three sets of eyes." He says confidently but looking over at Kate for confirmation that she's with him here on how best to proceed.

She nods her agreement, because Ryan is right – and he's thinking clearly. Latching onto the obvious 'references' within Castle's work and trying to make sense of them without the entire context of the story itself is probably not smart. If Castle has truly had to hide stuff – like she said earlier on, then the narrative itself could be as important a clue as any singular 12th precinct related detail.

She has to let the story be her focus – the details will come.

She resolutely takes the few strides that will put her back at her desk again, and swallowing around the ever-present lumps in her throat she forces herself to sit back down – pick up the pages . . . and go forward onto chapter five.

A yellow legal pad is slapped down onto the worn surface of her desk next to her.

"Notes - Beckett." Espo hisses at her sternly – so she makes him smile by rolling her eyes at him.

Then she dutifully grabs a pen from the mug full of them that sits in front of her, and she tugs the legal pad to her right side. Beckett focuses on the opening sentence of the books next segment and she sighs.

* * *

Five o'clock rolls around all too quickly and Kate is battling frustration again – with herself this time because she has only managed to make it though to chapter number ten. Her legal pad now has random observations scrawled over a full three pages but she's finding herself mentally seconding guessing now every damn last one of them. And this is totally what's responsible for making the reading process so painfully slow.

Under normal circumstances she'd let herself just get lost within it – and it's been excruciatingly hard for her not to. She wants to let his carefully chosen words and snappy dialogue carry her off in the company of his breathtaking and imaginative versions of them – their 'alternate world'. The one where Nikki is just tougher, stronger and far more open – more whole than Kate has hopes of being and where Rook is less innocent and more seasoned – more physically capable of protecting himself than she dares to believe of Castle.

Ideally she'd have managed to finish the book already – an unrealistic wish perhaps, but she can't contain this weird feeling that time is somehow (– after five months of his absence) suddenly of the essence. And instead of being finished with it she's only a third of the way through – her eyes burning from pouring over the printed pages – her mind horribly fuzzy from trying so hard to glean meaning from the words.

As much as it's killing Kate to admit to it – she needs to take a break.

The dark-haired detective stretches her cramped shoulders, raises her arms high over her head and inhales a deep breath, as much as her lungs can hold. With the air held tightly inside them she refuses to breathe out – becomes focused on her heartbeat instead, on the regular thump of it with the cavity of her chest. It's helpful sometimes, to take a moment and let the dull thud of her heart – the burning of oxygen deprivation act to remind her that she's truly still alive.

Desperately without him . . . but still alive, and as long as he's alive too - out there somewhere . . . she's got hope.

Kate pushes herself up out of her chair and makes her way into the break room. Five minutes later she emerges with a large mug of coffee cradled between her palms. Pausing in the doorway she leans against the solid door frame in relief - lets it hold her up as she scans the bullpen to see what Ryan and Espo are up to.

Sipping at the burning hot beverage she can't help but love that her two partners are still buried in Castle's manuscript at their respective desks. And she knows they've planned to go over it together tomorrow – to sit and compare their notes but she needs to know – her tired mind demands it – that knowledge – of whether or not they've seen something she didn't.

So pushes herself off of the door frame with lots of effort and new found determination, takes the steps that she needs to and sits herself on the edge of Espo's desk.

The Latino detective doesn't notice her immediately, and for that fact alone Kate loves her cop-brother that little bit more. Ryan over at his desk looks up, nods at her and smiles, but Espo – he's writing furiously on his own yellow legal pad – scrawl that she cannot translate but he's clearly taking this all very much to heart.

She clears her throat and he startles next to her – looking up he looks bemused for a second to see her sitting there – but when she says nothing, just takes another sip of her coffee her eyebrow rising, he suddenly gathers the reason for her presence and so he smiles at her.

"Impatient . . . are we?" He says warmly, nudging her knee with this elbow.

Beckett shrugs.

"Yes. I require an update Javi . . . I'm going crazy over there (she nods towards her desk) buried in these chapters all by myself. We can do this properly tomorrow of course – but please tell me you've read something that seems significant?" She looks back over at Ryan. "And that goes for you too." She adds.

Javi purses his lips. "I think I might be reading way too much into everything – I'm only on chapter nine and I kept thinking I see things – so I write them down but then think its just part of the story . . . .I don't know what to tell you honestly Beckett . . . I just don't think I'm good at this – never was much of a reader." He admits.

Kate turns to Ryan.

"What about you?" She asks.

"Gangs running drugs." Ryan replies.

Espo looks back down at his notes and then points excitedly to various different scribbles on the page.

"Yeah bro . . . that . . . that could be something." He says.

Kate frowns, confused.

"Guys . . . I'm not following."

Ryan stands up, brings his own notes over.

"See here on page seventy six, then on eighty one, eighty nine . . . and then again on ninety two and yet again at the bottom of page one-oh-five."

Kate shakes her head. 'See what?"

"It's mentioned blatantly over and over again by each of the main characters and yet seemingly unrelated to their multiple murder investigation – it's so blatant its overkill . . . and that's why it stands out Beckett . . . because he's very subtle in his plots, the clues to the mystery artfully hidden – this is jarring, weirdly not Castle's style."

Kate looks but still she shakes her head – desperate that she cannot see it.

So Ryan goes on.

"On each of these pages a separate character is talking about Rook's disappearance and then each of them hypothesizes the exact same cause for it . . . don't you think that's weird?"

Kate's eyebrows shoot up, eyes startled.

"They do?" She asks. "How did I not see that?"

"Hey . . . until 'Castle-junior' over there mentioned it I didn't realize either that I've noted the same explanation for Rook's suspected abduction five times already."

Kate thinks it over and her eyes light up – excited and terrified in both parts equally.

"You're right." She says voice slightly trembling. "Five characters stating Rook is missing because he got in the way of gang-related drug running in just under thirty pages is way too repetitious – insane even for an author as skilled as Castle. And Rook was on assignment looking into emerald smuggling . . . so their hypotheses doesn't even really make any sense unless . . . unless Castle's trying to tell us that's directly related to what's happened to him!"


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven: **The only thing that's stopping me from falling down.

* * *

_Five months ago. . . _

* * *

His father disappears for four terminally long days.

And that leaves Castle stuck there . . . in an empty villa - with only a Greek speaking late sixty-something female housekeeper whose very kind and who smiles at him a lot but whom he can ask nothing of.

She doesn't even attempt to speak to him – however she cooks for him all the time. He's had no real appetite since the first day he woke up here - but she's after him with delicious looking balanced meals three times a day. And it dawns on him after the second day of it that she's very clearly been told by Gabor to ensure that he eats – to try and keep his strength up.

So of course by the fourth day all its doing is driving him totally bat-shit crazy.

This entire situation is driving him bat-shit crazy . . . and the scariest part – he's so desperately lonely he thinks he could die – and he's acutely aware that he's only four days into this . . . with no idea of how long this enforced exile is going to be.

How cruel that seems to him. That he cannot even cross the days off of a calendar with any satisfaction at all because there is no end to his torment within sight.

Castle's always been aware of the fact that he _needs _people around him. He's just the type of person who craves interaction – it's a big part of what makes him who he is. So being so isolated like this, being left all alone, well not since he broke up with Kyra and before he met Meredith has there been any real period of his adult life when he was spending the days truly on his own.

And ever since Alexis was born he's had both companionship and responsibilities constantly - he's so not used to this – to pure unmitigated solitude . . . and he's finding he doesn't know how to cope with it at all, he has no skill set for this.

Especially here - stuck on an island . . . where apart from the beach and a library full of books to read - there seems to be absolutely nothing else for him to do.

So he's ridiculously grateful – despite the fact he's angry as all hell at the man - when he wakes up on the fifth morning to discover that his father has returned.

The writer is up early, as he has been every morning since he got here – uncharacteristic for him when he's not on any set schedule but the fact is he's been sleeping very poorly. He spends his night time hours tossing and turning in bed, waking fitfully from half-remembered dreams as he searches vainly for Kate in each and every single unconscious moment.

It's both the most unique and also the purest form of torture he can imagine.

There is a constant ache deep in his heart, painful - pressing upwards against his lungs and making him feel like he can't ever take a deep enough breath. His writer's mind keeps actively torturing itself with visions of Kate taking crazy dangerous risks while she's searching for him; and it's made much worse by the fact that she no longer has the protection of a badge or partner or a gun. She's just a civilian now . . . so he worries constantly about her . . . does anyone have her back without him there - or is she starkly vulnerable . . . all alone?

There is no way for him to know – and it cuts just so deep.

And God he hopes . . . he _needs_ to keep believing that Alexis and Kate are working to support each other through this – because it's been better than he hoped for actually – their relationship since he and Kate finally got together. Alexis is such an understanding soul by nature – but she'd clearly built up resentments towards his partner on his behalf over the course of the previous year, and they would manifest sometimes . . . without any warning – so all he can pray for is that it isn't happening again right now.

If his mother, Kate and Alexis have all banded together – then he knows they'll somehow get each other through this – but if not . . . then he also knows the situation will be so much harder on Kate if her relationship with Martha and his daughter has fallen apart.

Still . . . his fingers are crossed that it isn't happening . . . and maybe his toes too.

He wanders into the kitchen expecting to see Dianthe making coffee and setting the table for breakfast but encounters Gabor instead, he's instantly both relieved and furious – then confused when it feels weird to him that his father's face positively lights up as soon as he sees him.

It's like he can instinctively tell that 'delight' is an expression that rarely - if ever - crosses the other man's face.

"Richard – good morning . . . your timing is excellent – the French press on the table there is hot and fresh."

Castle doesn't know what to say in the moment so he swallows the recriminations sitting there on the tip of his tongue and instead forces a tight smile to cross to his face. He nods at the older man and pours himself a cup of coffee before he wanders out through the perpetually open French doors and sits himself on the uncomfortable, uneven white stone wall, instead of at the table and chairs. It's perverse – he's well aware of it, but he can't seem to allow himself to get comfortable here . . . not when he caused this.

Gabor joins him with his own coffee a few minutes later.

"Where have you been?" Castle grumbles as the older man pulls out a chair. He's totally torn between being happy Gabor has returned so he has someone to talk too – ask questions of – and outright resentment of the man for this enforced captivity.

A small frown ghosts over Gabor's face before he smiles – and Castle can tell the man is trying to be both open and reassuring.

"New York." The spy replies casually, unaware that just the city's name stabs Castle in the heart. "Snatching you was highly risky, and while I have complete access to all CIA surveillance from here . . . I was already scheduled to meet with Valez two days ago anyway. I thought it highly prudent to make that meeting - to assess his reaction to these events in person. Make sure his plans for Kate hadn't been altered . . . that he was still happy to wait on his full revenge."

Yeah – Castle has also been brooding about that.

"And?" He asks nervously. "Please tell me that they're all still safe."

Gabor nods. "Valez doesn't know I have you – in fact no one does, apart from a few trusted colleagues and in order to sneak you here that was unfortunately unavoidable. A driver, a pilot . . . some medical assistance were all required . . . right now Valez is under the impression that you have been killed – just a whole lot more quietly than he'd originally planned. . . and we need to hope he keeps on believing that. "

Castle gasps, looking truly horrified.

"How . . . how did you get him to buy that?" He asks with no small amount of trepidation – but as he looks into his father's s electric blue gaze the author realizes he already knows the answer . . . he can see it written on Gabor's face.

"Oh my God" He whispers. "You've led Valez to believe _you_ killed me _for_ him – as some sort of a favor. I'm right aren't I? But you've told him you took me out very quietly . . . because no body . . . no crime."

There is an indescribable sorrow in his father's face as Castle says this. And when Gabor nods hesitantly there is shame visible on his rugged face as well. And when he speaks, he speaks very softly – as if he's trying to cushion the both the writer and himself from a blow.

"It was . . . harder than I thought it would be – to sell him this lie. But Valez bought it – in the end – once I made a show of pointing out to him how _very_ much worse Kate's despair would inevitably be when after months of searching in vain for you – believing you'd been abducted but still hoping you were alive – he got to be the one to tell her you were simply dead – and why."

Castle stomach rolls, and bile crawls up his throat, but then he thinks about it, really stops and thinks about it. Gabor has a somewhat solid plan, it can work, and at least this way Valez is in a holding pattern with regards to his punishment for Kate, happy to sit back and watch her struggle - and everyone that he loves still has hope that he's actually alive.

It's the best of a bad situation in point of fact, because if Gabor hadn't convinced Valez that Castle was dead . . . then who knows how he might have decided to exact his revenge on Kate then.

And that – that does not bear thinking about.

Castle bites his lip and studies his father quietly.

"Thank you." He says after a long pause. "For convincing Valez to believe that, for acting to keep Kate safe; I don't think I would survive it if anything were to happen to her now – especially if happened because of me." He confesses.

Gabor's shoulders noticeably relax and he smiles broadly, and as Castle studies him for a long moment he's suddenly very much able to see himself in his father when all the sternness vanishes like this from the other man's features.

"I know that Richard." Gabor replies kindly. "And I know this is very hard for you . . . but I do mean to get you _both _through this – you and Kate. I'll get you back to her somehow – back to your life together . . . in the end."

Castle nods and takes a sip of his cooling coffee.

"So . . ."He asks. "Will you tell me what you plan to do?"

Gabor looks hesitant, torn, like he _wants _to share . . . but ultimately doesn't think it's such a great idea.

"What little I can divulge to you . . . I will. But this is a complicated operation my son –classified. And I didn't exactly get concealing you sanctioned. The agency let me act to prevent your murder – but all I was just supposed to do was stop it - warn you, and then leave you alone. If I'd done that Valez would simply have tried again . . . and again or just thought to hell with it and killed Kate outright. Balancing the Agency's needs against my own desire to protect you at all costs . . . and deal with Valez . . . it's going to take time. The Agency is not going to let me shut Valez down until they get what they want – namely intel on the key cartel leaders that only Valez can supply. Once I have that . . . then he goes down. Once I have that . . . then you're safe . . . but it's going to take time Richard – I would be lying to you if I said otherwise."

Castle sighs heavily, forces himself to reluctantly ask . . .

"How much time are we talking about here . . . just a ball park?"

His father looks apologetic.

"Months." He says. "At the very least"

_Shit . . . seriously?_

"I'm going to go crazy – you know that right?" The writer responds. "I'll go quietly stark-raving mad here with nothing to do . . . and you coming and going. Without Kate I . . . I'm going to go crazy. And that goes for my family too – so Gabor you _have_ to tell them. You have to let at least Mother, Kate and Alexis know that I'm okay . . . I can't do this to them – _you_ can't do this to them."

Gabor pushes back from the table and stands, coffee cup in his large hands. He joins his son on the low stone wall, seating himself sideways so that he can look at him. He speaks sternly.

"Understand this Richard – because this is the way it is. Cesar Valez is ruthless – and he's watching them. He has cops on his payroll – hell he has members of the FBI on his payroll and he has eyes and ears all over the city. If the people that love you knew – if they truly _knew_ that you were alive . . . safe . . . well . . . if they had communication with you of any kind – it would show at some point. Right now Valez is perfectly content to sit back and watch Kate Beckett suffer through your disappearance _only_ because all that pain and confusion and loss is so perfectly genuine. The fact of the matter is – because they are all so broken up, so worried, all acting so appropriately – that is the _only _thing that's keeping all of them all safe. Don't you see – if they knew and had to 'act', if they were to slip – even for a moment – they would give the truth away and then it might mean Kate's life. So you _must_ accept and accept right now that this is the _only _way."

Castle closes his eyes and tries to take a calming breath - doesn't work. The thought of months . . . endless months stretching out in front of him without his daughter . . . without his love – he can't do it. He's never going to make it deprived of her voice and her scent and her touch . . . he's addicted to her – it's a simple and as complicated as that.

He feels a hand come to rest on his back, realizes that he's struggling for breath – panicking at the thought of struggling through so much time on his own.

"I can't . . . I need her." He whispers brokenly. "I need Kate."

The hand at his back slides up to his shoulder and squeezes. He hears his father sigh heavily – resigned.

"Richard I have something to show you." Gabor tells him.

So Castle opens his eyes.

* * *

The author has been all over the villa in the five days he'd been stranded here. Apart from his room, which is set in a wing of the building that's built into the cliff itself and therefore only exists on the upper floor – there are four other bedrooms, three bathrooms, a library, the kitchen and a spacious lounge. That's pretty much it – or so anyone exploring the place would be led to believe.

But of course this place belongs to the CIA – so Castle should have known there had to be more.

Gabor heads up the stairs ahead of him - to the upper floor, at the stair-head he turns in the direction of Castle's room, but halfway down the hallway he stops, there is a painting on the wall, large, three feet wide by six feet tall – it conceals a door.

There's a narrow corridor behind it - rough-hewn where its carved from the stone of the cliff, which ends after about fifteen feet in a circular room, and everywhere Castle looks there is a screen.

_Holy shit._

Gabor smirks slightly and the writer realizes he's spoken the words aloud, then the spy heads for a work station, enters some commands into a keyboard – speaks an authorization code and every screen in the room promptly jumps to life.

And there she is – as Castle looks around the entire room she is everywhere – she is all he sees . . . Kate.


	12. Chapter 12

**Thank you once again to those of you who have reviewed either one or more than one chapter - it's so lovely to hear from all, and to hear that you are loving this story.**

* * *

**Chapter Twelve: **No one can save me; no one can save me like you do.

* * *

Kate leaves the 12th Precinct that night with a renewed sense of purpose that's kicked her up the behind in a way she's only realizing just now that she's sorely needed.

The last month or so, she's been doing nothing but going through the motions in every single aspect of her life. Heading into work each day but just plodding through her cases, checking up on the FBI – but not pushing – not pushing as hard for progress. Eating only what she could force her body to keep down, and sleeping only when she hit a wall of exhaustion so high that there was simply no other alternative left to her. She's existed in a bubble of utter despair – floating through the outside world but never seeming to be a part of it – never touching it – or having it touch her.

Thank God she thinks, that the bubble popped today with the arrival of Castle's manuscript and so she's been forced back out into a loud, bright and forbidding reality where its come crashing down upon her that her loss of focus – her going through the motions behavior isn't good enough. Castle's depending on her – he's relying upon her . . . this much his book makes startlingly clear – so there is not a snowballs chance in hell she'll let him down.

She drives home with it lying on the passenger seat beside her, the spare copy tucked into the messenger bag in the foot well – she's going to call Alexis – she's decided, now that she's positive its real. No way she can contain it, this small piece of good news – mustn't keep it to herself when she knows only to well that Alexis needs this as much as she did.

She'll talk it over with Alexis – how much they decide to tell Martha.

The loft is dark and quiet when she lets herself into it, dropping her keys onto the kitchen counter she places the two copies of 'Heat Lost' beside them and reaches with shaking fingers into her jacket pocket for her cell phone, pacing the living room and turning on the lamps as she goes.

Alexis Castle picks up the call in her dorm on the fifth ring.

"Hey Kate." The nineteen year old sounds somber and tired, and oh how Kate wishes it was just the normal college student fatigue she can hear – even though of course she knows better.

"Hi Lex. How are you?" She says softly, wincing at the lame way that sounds, she hears Alexis try but fail to muffle a melancholy sigh.

"Today . . . I'm . . . not so good Kate." The author's daughter replies honestly, speaking again before Kate can give up the good news. "I know I've been telling you that it was time we faced the fact that Dad - that he most likely wasn't going to come home . . . but I think it's finally starting to hit me – that's he most likely _dead _. . . and I miss him Kate. I just miss him so damn much." There's a sound that's suspiciously like a small sob at the end of the young woman's speech, and Kate just can't contain her huge news any longer.

"Listen to me - he's _not _dead Lex." She says it firmly - with certainty. "In fact that's why I'm calling you – because there was a break in the case today. Black Pawn received a manuscript this morning and Gina brought it straight to me. We both agreed it's actually from Castle and sweetheart it's definite - your Dad's fingerprints are all over it."

There is a startled – almost strangled gasp and then nothing but silence over the phone line, so Kate gives her partner's daughter a moment to absorb until the silence stretches on for too long.

"Lex – did you hear me?" The detective prompts. "Hunnie are you still there?"

More small sobs sounding like they're being muffled by a hand and Kate holds her own tears back – barely.

"Where are you now Kate?" Alexis asks tearfully at length.

"The loft." The brunette replies. "Alexis do you understand what I just told you?"

"Yeah . . . yeah. I'm . . . I'm coming home – I'm going to leave right now. Kate are you sure – do the FBI know – does it . . . is he coming home? Where is he?" Kate can tell Alexis is reeling just by her the sound of her voice – her tone is jumping all over the place.

"Once it was fingerprinted and the prints came back positive as Rick's – then Captain Gates called the FBI. They've taken possession of the original book I'm afraid - but we made copies before we handed it over – Javi and Kevin and I. I've brought a copy home here for you too Lex – I thought you'd want it." She says gently.

"Yes. _YES_. Of course I do. Why . . . I'm confused . . . Kate what does this mean? Does this mean he was kidnapped? You must have some theory you're all working on . . . some ideas? What do the guys think?"

Kate sighs.

"Just come home Alexis – and try not to rush, just get here safely. I'll be here . . . I show you what we think we've learned and then we'll discuss it alright. I promise you'll be involved in this all the way – you'll always know what I know . . . okay?"

Alexis sounds better now, happier, more herself – Kate empathizes.

"I'll only be an hour or so." She replies.

Beckett smiles into the phone.

"I'll have dinner ready for you when you get here – I think it's just possible we both might have more of an appetite tonight – what do you say?"

Alexis actually laughs and Kate's heart eases immensely just to hear it.

"You know I think you might be right Kate – I'll see you soon."

* * *

Kate keeps dinner simple. Just some spaghetti with meat sauce and some garlic bread that's suffering slightly from freezer burn even with Castle's state-of-the-art refrigerator. Doesn't really matter – it's not like they'll manage more than a couple of pieces of the thing and it doesn't feel like a proper dinner without it.

She's just straining the pasta noodles and taking a long sip of a glass of red wine when she hears the sound of a key in the door to the loft. Looking up, she manages a small smile - ready to greet Alexis with it as she rounds the corner of the kitchen counter – but the young red-head drops her bag on the tiles and practically flies across the entrance way and into the detective's arms.

The cop is momentarily stunned. Her relationship with her partner's daughter has traveled all over the map in recent years – both before and after she and Castle got together romantically – but since his disappearance it's definitely solidified into a real bond. It's not exactly a parent/child relationship – but Kate has come to love Alexis fiercely. Feels a responsibility to look out for her – so she tries to be there in that parental role whenever the teenager seems to need it, but they don't 'hug' much . . . so this is highly unexpected.

The girl is shuddering against her, fighting tears Kate would guess, so she squeezes Alexis to her tightly, whispers what she hopes is calming nonsense into her hair.

It seems to have the desired effect, for when the young woman pulls back finally she looks calmer than Kate could have hoped for, and there's a watery smile now on her lovely pale face.

"Thanks Kate." She says lightly. "You wouldn't believe how much I needed that."

_Oh . . . to be held_.

The cop's thoughts of course immediately turn to Rick . . . to how badly, and how often she misses the strength, the warmth - the pure unadulterated comfort of his arms around her. That sense of relief that always overcame her when she could just burrow into his embrace – safe there from the world – and she smiles at Alexis in sympathy, her hand coming to rest on the girls left shoulder - her fingers toying with the ends of her hair.

"Anytime Lex." She tells her. "We're family." She adds, her green gaze dark and serious, holding his daughter's blue one solidly.

Alexis nods, her lips curving further upwards, a warmth coming from the reassurance and creeping across her face.

"I'm hungry . . . in fact I'm starving . . . but I need to see Dad's book Kate . . . before anything else." She says.

Beckett nods.

"I know." She says softly. "It's waiting for you on the counter over there."

The writer's daughter doesn't need to be told twice. The young woman sits herself on a bar stool, and pulls the pile of copied pages towards her. Kate goes quietly back into the kitchen, plates their food and then slips the covered plates into the top oven to keep warm. She glances back over her shoulder as she pushes the oven door shut, notes that Alexis is reading slowly, her fingertips reverently tracing slowly over the words on the paper – eyes shining with unshed tears.

The detective can imagine what the kid's going through – how precious each and every word she reads must feel – all of them parts of Richard Castle that have so miraculously found their way home.

She feels the same . . . oh God does she ever.

Needing a distraction lest watching the younger woman reading actually makes her cry - Kate picks up her wine glass again and takes another large swallow. She wants to give Alexis the space and time to read as much as she needs to absorb . . . so she should make use of that time she figures - try to anticipate the questions the girl is going to ask her and start praying she has a decent answer.

She has to wait five minutes more.

"Wow." Alexis breathes suddenly, lowering the page in her hand back onto the granite counter-top.

"You okay?" Kate asks. "You need to tell me what you're thinking Lex . . . anything you've noticed, your impressions – even everything that you're feeling reading it might help."

The red-head studies Beckett for moment, mulling over the questions.

"It's Dad's. It really is Dad's." Quiet awe coats her words. "I mean I know you told it me it was, and I know that his prints were on the original pages . . . but I can see what you and Gina saw. I hear him – his voice when I read the story . . . just the same way I do with everything else he's ever written. I would have known it was him Kate – just from the way it's written . . . I never knew I could do that before."

The words make Kate feel warm inside.. "It feels good though – right?"

Alexis positively beams. "Yeah it does." She replies. "It feels . . . it feels kinda amazing - actually. So what happens now? Why do _you _think the book is here?" She asks.

Kate rounds the counter and comes to take a seat beside her.

"Here's my theory - I think he sent it to us." She begins.

"Okay."

"I think he had to hide where it was going – so he sent it to Black Pawn – which was risky, because they've been getting a lot of submissions from people claiming to be 'Richard Castle' in the months that your father's been gone. Regardless – it got to Gina – and from Gina – to me – and that makes me wonder . . . "

Alexis interrupts.

"Dad doesn't know that you're a cop again though. It wasn't until after he vanished that you decided to go back."

Kate sighs.

"That's an 'assumption' Lex – and one I admit I've made myself – but honestly – if we're covering all of our bases here – we have to acknowledge the possibility that maybe he does. And even if he isn't aware of it – he must have hoped that Gina would pass it along to the Twelfth and through the Twelfth to Ryan and Esposito – once they had it – it's a safe bet for him that I would become involved in the case. Maybe the loopy route was necessary to get it specifically into our hands – ours – and not any one else's."

"Okay – go on."

"We haven't figured out yet what is going on here, but the book does contain references in the chosen character names and especially in the storyline . . . and these are things only the four members of our Homicide team would ever know. Some of the things I've found so far - only Castle and I would know. It's very careful, very specific stuff – literally a mystery within a mystery, and somehow we're supposed to figure out what's happened to Castle from what's inside those pages. That's what I believe it's doing here – what your father is asking of us. My hope is that when we figure it out – we find him, or we make it safe for him to come home."

Alexis looks very thoughtful. "He must be so afraid Kate – to go to all this trouble hiding what he wants to tell us and where on earth he is . . . he must be really . . . really afraid."

Kate reaches out to squeeze her hand. "Yeah I know . . . and I'll admit that really scares me – it was my conclusion too."

Alexis pulls her hand away suddenly –smacks herself on the head.

"Oh – I'm an idiot – there's a warning to be careful . . . right there on the second page." The red-head grabs for the pile of pages again, flips back through what little she's read until she finds it – she practically shoves it at Kate.

"Hold up Lex – what am I looking at?" The cop asks confused.

"Here . . . the street next to where the bodies are . . . that's not a New York city street at all – that's Dad's code word."

Kate looks at the sentence Alexis is pointing to.

"_Nikki arrives at her destination, the alley behind the pharmacy on the corner of 'Mallowan' Street_?"

Alexis nods fervently, her pretty long cascading around her face.

"'Mallowan' Street is somehow significant Lex?" The detective clarifies.

"Yes – but only to Dad and I. When I was little, we had a code word, it had to be something no one could guess and it was sort of a game, but if either of us said it to the other over the phone it was a warning that something was very wrong. Dad was afraid I might get kidnapped or something for ransom – because he's rich and famous, so he wanted me to be able to tell him something was up if he spoke to me - without it tipping anyone else off."

"And 'Mallowan' was the code word?"

Alexis smiles. "Yes."

Beckett looks intrigued.

"Where on earth did he get 'Mallowan' from?" She asks.

The smile on the younger woman's face widens.

"Agatha Christie was married twice – Mallowan was her second husband's last name."

Kate can't help it – she laughs. "That's just so . . . Castle."

Alexis grins at her. "Yeah but can you imagine having to work it into a sentence as a child?"

Kate shakes her head.

"It's a warning Kate . . . I know it is. It's Dad way of saying '_Danger Will Robinson – there is trouble ahead_."


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: I was so in love with the 'batcave' comments you guys left me that I couldn't resist having Castle now totally thinking of the villa's 'secret space' in those terms.**

* * *

**Chapter Thirteen: **Isn't she everything you need?

* * *

_Four months and one day ago. . . _

* * *

Castle stares around the 'batcave' like room with his mouth open – held spellbound, completely entranced by the sight of the beyond beautiful face of the woman he loves.

Motionless, he finds it – for a moment – hard to breathe. It's been less than a week but seeing her face again it suddenly feels like months seen they've been together, and just like that the pit of sorrow in his soul rises up and threatens to completely undo him – he blinks rapidly through the increasing panic – until the sight of her can act to steady him.

_God he misses her . . . he misses her . . . he misses . . . _

The author moves finally, pulled towards the largest screen on the farthest wall slowly . . . drawn inexorably forward by his personal north star – until he comes to a stop merely inches from the video that's playing of her. Castle reaches out his shaking fingertips – resting them against the plastic – right over her cheek.

It all burns within him then – love, desire, lust, need . . . a homesickness so crippling he cannot think.

"Kate." Her name slips free of his lips unconsciously - like a benediction . . . because she is the loudest prayer in his heart. "Oh God - Kate."

"Richard – are you alright?"

His father's voice interrupts, pulls him back into his nightmare of a reality again and the writer turns from the screen to find Gabor standing behind him.

Castle shakes his head, his eyes glassy and slightly unfocused.

"No."

"I'm sorry then." His father replies. "I'd hoped . . . seeing this . . . seeing her – might help."

Castle shakes his head again – only this time it's to clear it.

"No it's not that . . ."He replies. "The images – are they live . . . where is she?"

Gabor shakes his head.

"These are not live no – they've been recorded over the last few days. It's various surveillance videos that the computer has automatically cut together using a facial recognition program."

The writer's eyes widen, heart racing.

"You mean it's searching . . . only for her?"

Gabor nods.

"It automatically forwards the video loop to me every eight hours if there is new footage that has been collated."

Wow. He's seen the CIA's toys all before and yet he's still totally staggered right now.

"Where . . . where is this footage coming from?" Castle asks, turning back towards the screen. He can't tell where she is, she's talking to someone – but the remarkably clear image of Beckett is framed pretty tightly on her lovely face. He studies her familiar features intently, the footage is color and high definition and he wonders where she could be that the CIA could tap into images caught on HD cameras like these?

"From everywhere Richard - there are camera's all over New York – you know this. There are cameras in every police precinct; grocery stores, traffic cams, ATM's - plus there are cameras in your apartment building – at gas stations – on the subway. Basically once a face has been loaded into this program – we can track that person – almost everywhere that they choose to go."

Castle nods slowly – absorbing – so much for people's illusions of privacy.

"And why exactly are you tracking Kate Beckett?" He demands – and Gabor smiles inwardly at the now affronted and highly protective tone clearly evident in his son's voice.

"For you." The spy replies simply. "It's not strictly speaking an appropriate usage of these highly classified CIA resources I'll grant you and it's certainly not a sanctioned one either. But I've felt strongly because of our discussions - that you would need this. You would need to be able to reassure yourself with your own eyes that Kate was alive and well . . . but of course I can delete her from the watchdog program if that is your wish?"

The writer's heart instantaneously protests – and Castle bows his head, fighting with himself. Between knowing how very much Kate would hate this – this being constantly watched . . . and knowing he's already completely unable to bear the thought of giving up this access to her – this lifeline.

"_No_." He chokes out, his hands fisting at his sides. "No please . . . you're right . . . you're right Gabor . . . thank you this . . . helps."

The spy frowns – clearly somewhat skeptical that his son is being entirely truthful – because the novelist looks tense and miserable – and clearly in emotional turmoil; and that skepticism transmits instantly, so Castle makes his admission again more firmly this time – afraid that his access is about to be taken away.

"No really – it helps, it does. It's just . . . this is crippling if I'm being honest. Just crippling to me – how much I miss her." He admits, sharing the realization the last week has wrought on him. "And not just Kate either, but Alexis and my mother too – I'm finding I can't help it – but I don't function very well this way - I'm just not a person who's used to only himself for company. Well not since I was a child anyway – and to be honest I actually hated it even then – I think it's why I started creating characters to begin with – for the company."

Gabor nods his head in silent sympathy.

"You'd make a truly lousy spy." He says wryly – glad when the statement manages to procure at least a smile from the younger man.

"Yeah?" Castle laughs softly. "I guess I would."

The two men are silent for moment – and Castle's eyes inevitably drift back to the screens and to Kate - its different footage now, all black and white and grainy but still identifiably her. It looks like a parking garage . . . his building maybe? He can't honestly tell – but his eyes don't move from her, his pupils dilated and following every movement that she makes.

His expression – if only he could see it is utterly heartbreaking. Gabor cannot recall ever seeing a man look quite so bereft – so lost.

Clearing his throat he attracts Rick's attention again.

"Well I'm not a lousy spy – not usually at least. I've always been able to predict people very well – but I didn't foresee this actually – that you would cope so poorly alone – I figured writer's were pretty solitary creatures by nature – it seemed a logical assumption to me – considering what it is that you do."

The author shakes his head.

"The act of writing might be very solitary – but that's not really how it works . . . at least it isn't for me. I draw my inspiration from people – my stories come from what I see and observe - from those I interact with. It's that interaction that sparks my ideas – and then the tales flow. And Kate . . . Kate is for me – from the moment I met her – she's the muse, she's the inspiration for all of it – everything I've written since the day she walked into my life."

Gabor suddenly looks very thoughtful.

"What?" The writer asks.

Gabor smiles. "Just an idea – something else that I should have thought of prior to now . . . hopefully another way to make this easier for you Richard."

Castle shrugs.

"Aside from this . . . "He indicates the screens all around them, "I can't think of much of anything that can do that . . . except . . . can it track Alexis also?"

Gabor nods.

"It can be done. You'll have access to this room once per day – fifteen minutes only at 6pm – understand? If I'm here I'll accompany you – if not Dianthe will make sure everything is on and playing and you'll find the door open for you. Do not attempt to access anything using the computers Richard – and this is important. You need fingerprint and voice recognition and codes – they won't work for you my son and if you attempt to hack into them – even touch them – you'll find yourself gassed and incapacitated. It's highly unpleasant – I don't recommend it."

Yeah it certainly doesn't sound pleasant - so the novelist nods.

"I understand." He says, taking another long desperate glance at the screens – still full of Kate and he can feel himself trying to absorb it – her – just soak up as much as he can to get him through until tomorrow.

He can't help but notice that she looks tired on the monitor now – and it looks like this footage is from the lobby of their apartment building . . . she's waiting on the elevator by the looks of it. She keeps rubbing the side of her face – and biting on her lip. They're her 'worried' tells, her shoulders are slumped . . . and weary and his heart is breaking for her – for them – because what's being stolen from them right now is more precious than diamonds – it's time – lost time together in a finite lifespan – as if they haven't had enough of that? He can't think of anything crueler – or more unfair.

Forcing himself he manages to turn away – to say goodbye to her image – at least for now, and he follows his father back down the stone corridor – back out into the villa. Gabor heads back downstairs with Castle on his heels and at the kitchen door Gabor indicates that the writer should go inside and finally eat some breakfast.

"I'll be right back." He promises.

Castle tries not to look concerned, and his stomach growls he decides he'll just obey.

He's halfway through a meal of bread and cheeses when his father returns, a large-ish bulky case of some kind carried in his right hand – and the writer is instantly intrigued.

Gabor joins him at the table – hefting the case up so he can deposit it in front of Castle's meal.

The spy smiles . . . the light in his captivating blue eyes sets them twinkling.

"What is it?" Castle asks around a mouthful of food – pointing at the case with his eyebrow quirked.

"Another distraction . . . I hope . . . something else for you to do." Gabor answers cryptically.

He opens the case and Castle can't help it – his whole face lights up – because this will help . . . it absolutely will . . . he can feel the possibilities already.

"You like it." His father says smiling hugely now. "I'm relieved."

Castle nods, reaching out immediately and running his fingers carefully over the contents of the case.

It's kinda beautiful - to him anyway . . . typewriters always make him feel that way about them.

That sense of 'old-school' he thinks - of mystery; and he can't even imagine why it should even be here . . . but between the video screens and now this - he has a feeling that he's just been handed both of the required keys to saving his sanity . . . oh this is so much better than scribbles on paper.

And suddenly he's breathing easier again.

Because he can write properly now . . . he can write for Kate . . . he can write himself out of this place . . . he can write . . . he can write again . . . he can write that other ending.


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: Bonus points if you find the Derrick Storm reference . . . and the OUAT one too!**

* * *

**Chapter Fourteen: **I'm no good lonely . . . without you.

* * *

She manages to talk Alexis into staying over after dinner, after all the girl's bedroom hasn't been touched since she moved out and into the dorms at Columbia, and there's just something about having another human being in the loft – and a Castle at that – that chases some of the gloom away for Kate.

Her partner's daughter smiles at her indulgently and acquiesces without saying anything, so Beckett remains in her borrowed 'parent' mode and sends Alexis upstairs with cocoa and her own copy of 'Heat Lost' clutched tightly to her chest like a teddy bear – Kate can't help but smile at the picture she makes as she climbs the open stairs. It's obvious the manuscript is having the same profound effect on of all of them – reaching out to touch them from wherever Castle currently is and serving to prop them up – giving back to each of them both their individual and collective sense of hope.

It's so important and it's so wonderful and yet it makes their decision to hold off on including Martha in this extra hard for Kate.

Alexis thinks they should wait a little before saying anything to her grandmother - and though Kate really wants to bring Martha some good news - the truth is that her partner's mother is really delicate right now and Alexis feels strongly its better if they don't get her hopes up until they've got more to say. It feels weird to think of Martha Rodgers - the Martha Rodgers - as delicate . . . but the disappearance of her only child has hit the actress for a clean six. She's drinking to a degree that scares the crap out of everyone - and Kate having been there before with her father - is taking it especially hard. Alexis has been making inroads lately though - bringing up the option of treatment and the actress has at least agreed to consider it - Kate knows that's a start.

It's a good start - and Castle would be so proud she thinks at the way they've come together as a family in his absence.

She can see him smiling at her suddenly - can imagine . . . oh she needs to kiss him again so badly tonight - that she could seriously, seriously just scream.

Instead, Kate gathers up her own copy of the novel and heads for the master bedroom – she's too tired to read, feels too wired to sleep so she just crawls under the duvet and snuggles down on his side of the huge bed with it tucked protectively under her cheek.

She wishes she could just absorb all the hidden meaning from it via her skin against the paper pages . . . while she wonders if she'll ever again be lucky enough to know the sensation of his fingers tangled up in the waves of her hair.

_Miss you baby . . . miss you so much._

What they've gleaned so far dances in front of her in the darkness – tormenting her to make some sense of it all . . . and as Kate begins to fall closer to sleep she ticks off what she believes they've learned already on the wipe-board within her mind.

'_Proceed with caution Kate . . . the New York drug gangs are somehow mixed up in this . . . maybe the reason for his disappearance . . . it is completely explainable. . . somehow . . . it seems he's hinting that the CIA are behind it . ._ . '

It's all such a crazy theory – its all Castle – but this is _real_ – what they've learned - she just _knows_ instinctively it is, and it sure feels like a lot for a mere ten chapters . . . like genuine progress, like she is - for the first time in five excruciatingly long months – finally getting somewhere.

Somewhere that's closer to _him._

He feels real once more . . . present . . . not just an impossible dream . . . exhausted finally . . . Kate sleeps.

_She finds herself walking along an unfamiliar shoreline, sand smooth and warm beneath her bare toes . . . a hot sun shining brightly in a sky as blue as his eyes over her head._

_The wind gathers up her hair and tosses it into her face, so she reaches up to pull the honeyed strands out of her eyes and its then that she sees him . . . sitting all alone a mere hundred feet away from her on the sand._

_Oh God . . . Rick!_

_Her heart leaps, her feet fly . . . they carry her to meet him until they fail beneath her and she falls onto to her knees beside him, her hand shaking as she reaches out . . . wondering if he's real . . . but his shoulder is warm and solid under her questing fingertips._

_He turns to look at her then - the gentlest smile she's ever seen breaking open slowly across his handsome face, lips quirking upwards at the corners just so . . . that innocent mischief she adores present - as ever - in his eyes – love starkly written in all the lines of his face._

"_You found me." He laughs softly. "You found me Kate."_

_She automatically answers. "Did you ever believe I wouldn't?"_

_But it's a line from somewhere . . . from something . . . and she knows then that she must be dreaming . . . but she finds she doesn't care . . . she doesn't give a damn . . . it's just everything to be with him again – she'll take that anyway she can._

_Still she shakes her head at him, eyes filling with unshed tears as she grips onto his bicep, strong and firm – nothing about him has changed . . . he's just as she remembers him._

_Her voice is now locked in her throat – nothing will come out. She wants to ask him questions, wants him to explain to her about the novel – have him tell her what he needs her to do. But she can't, she can't speak, can't have a conversation with the figment of him that her mind has conjured . . . doesn't want to waste time when she just needs to feel him . . . hold onto him again._

_His hand comes up and cradles her face – feels so perfectly real – the warmth of his large palm soaking into her cheek, his long fingers softly caressing her skin, his thumb ghosting over her lips._

"_Don't look so sad." He leans in to whisper quietly – his mesmerizing eyes glowing softly with deep concern. "I never leave you Kate – not really – you know that I'm always here."_

_She tries to nod – agree with him, reassure him – herself - but instead her eyes close as her tears spill over and she flings her arms around his neck, pushes herself into his lap – clinging to him desperately with her legs wrapped securely around him . . . if she can just hold on tightly enough . . . if she can just weld him to a part of her._

"_Come home." She mumbles to him brokenly. "Please . . . you have to . . . you have to just come home Castle . . . please."_

_His laughter is soft again in her ears, his broad chest shaking with it gently against her – strong arms closing around her and it's everything she's ever wanted. Everything. The only times in her life she's known complete joy have been in his arms and she aches for it again . . . for the absolute purity of happiness he brings to her._

"_You love me." He tells her . . . sounding as ridiculously pleased with himself as he was the first time she managed to utter those precious three words aloud._

_Face buried against his neck she finds she can laugh a little too._

"_So much Castle . . . so much."_

_He pushes her back then, prying her face away from him so that he looks at her, his face is quiet and serious, his eyes deep midnight pools of love._

"_Did you get it?" He asks._

_Get what? Did she get what? . . . Oh . . . the manuscript?_

_She nods. "I got it . . . I got the book."_

_He smiles – looks so pleased._

"_I was afraid it might not make it . . . that it might be cast aside or fall into the wrong hands."_

_She buries her fingers in his thick sandy hair knowing it's both their fears falling from his lips - she leans in and kisses him then . . . kisses him so fiercely, her mouth prying open his ruthlessly, her tongue delving quickly inside. She might wake up at any moment – she must grab what she needs._

"_I'm afraid." She breathes into this mouth when she can force herself to pull back – oh God it all feels so real._

"_I'm afraid too – but you needed the information Kate . . . to keep you safe . . . it'll keep you safe . . . I'll keep you safe if you'll let me."_

_He's not making sense . . . and she just has to . . . has to . . . kiss him again . . . tangle his tongue with hers._

_He lets her for only a moment - before he once more pushes her back._

"_Listen to me . . . its almost over Kate . . . almost – after so long - you have the answer in your hands baby - what's needed is all right there."_

_She studies him desperately - longs for a straight and easy answer._

_"Why is it so cryptic Rick - why did you have to hide it all?"_

_He brushes his fingers along the bridge of her nose._

_"Because they're watching Kate . . . they're always watching you."_

_She frowns, feels him fading away beneath her, his solid form dissolving - it breaks her in two._

_"Who . . . please Castle - tell me who . . . tell me why?" She cries despondently._

_She knows he can't, that he's merely a dream . . . but still she clutches at him . . .knows with a sick certainty that once he's gone she'll wake up again. _

_She's surprised when he answers her anyway - handsome face frowning like its so obvious._

_"The New York drug cartels Kate . . . both them . . . and the CIA."_

She wakes up breathless and wanting him . . . and wondering if it's true.


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: Forgive me, forgive me for not individually responding to all of your wonderful reviews – I read them all and flail a bit over them – but I'm so pushed for any time at all right now – so GROUP THANK YOU – GROUP HUG – and much appreciation to you all.**

* * *

**Chapter Fifteen: **These scars on my heart . . . I own them.

* * *

_Three months and three weeks ago . . . _

Castle stretches – both of his arms high above his head as he tries to get the kinks out that have taken up residence between his broad shoulders. It's always the same – once the writing bug bites him, and he writes in furious sessions that always leave him completely cramped up and sore. He's used to it - but it's definitely somewhat harder on his body now than it used to be – 'oh the joys' he thinks, of getting older.

Well older, and definitely slightly less 'in-shape' than he used to be. He thinks maybe with all this time on his hands he should do actually do something about that. Hmmmm.

The typewriter he's acquired has set up residence in the center of a desk Gabor has installed in Castle's bedroom for him, and it's a very strange experience for him to be writing on such an old-fashioned implement when he's so used to the swiftness and ease of a modern laptop. Each key stroke requires a lot more force and effort – so his fingers can't even begin to keep pace with his brain and to say that he's somewhat frustrated by it would be an understatement in the extreme – it's so slow! Still – it's much better than just a pen and paper would be, and there's a definite novelty – a sort of old fashioned 'whimsy' to the process that he can freely admit he does enjoy; kinda makes him feel 'at one' with the likes of Raymond Chandler and Agatha Christie.

That aside - his shoulders definitely hurt. He glances out through the gauzy sheer curtains that cover the balcony window and he sighs; it's sunny and warm again today and just like it occurs to the novelist that he is tired of writing today - and realizing that what he really _needs_ right now – apart from his girls and his home - isto be outdoors.

He needs to move - to get his heart rate up. He closes down the immediate thought of his preferable ways to accomplish that – so painful – and focuses instead on the idea of maybe a run.

Castle pulls the latest finished page from the rollers and eyes it critically – of course the other pain in the ass thing about writing this way is how insanely frustrating it is to edit his work. Instead of moving paragraphs around or simply cutting them out he has to start over each time from the point he was last happy with it - it's either that or he has to cross things out all the time when he decides in the scheme of the story that something he's already written doesn't work.

He's only five chapters into the book – working closely to the outline he's previously mapped out, but already he's had to re-type page after page as he moves things subtlety around.

This latest 'Nikki Heat' endeavor seems to have decided for him that it'll all be attached firmly to his past experiences with the Twelfth – and he's finding himself twirling into the narrative characters and places that all connect back to prior cases he's worked with Kate. Even his current predicament has been firmly visited upon Jameson Rook and Gabor's involvement with the CIA also seems to have insisted on being included. He's shocked actually - considering the difficulty he's having with his current circumstances that he actually wants to go 'there' with this book at all.

Still, he never argues with the direction of the narrative when his mind seems to 'see' the entirety of the story in a certain way and he does - he sees clearly all the messages he's leaving in his work even if he doesn't exactly know right now _why_ he's doing it. Especially when this book is really just an exercise to give him back something meaningful to do – but when he gets his life back – when he does - it'll be fun to publish it and then share all the hidden meaning in this work with others who will be able to find the clues too.

It makes writing the story more interesting – and he needs that right now- a definite goal to work towards. It helps to make a game of it - brings him that much closer emotionally to where he longs to be – with Kate.

* * *

He wanders slowly down the steep steps from the cliff-side villa onto the white Greek sand at their base. Its mid afternoon and the day is as hot as it going to get - in the high sixties – pleasant but not stifling and ideal for running so although he doesn't have running shoes here – clad in a t-shirt and a pair of cargo shorts he heads off bare-footed along the sand. The tide is low today and he can round the jagged rock formation at the end of the bay when the wet sand is exposed like this, another beach on the tiny islands eastern side lets him extend his jog somewhat further.

It reminds him of running along the beach behind his vacation home in the Hampton's, which in turn takes his thoughts home and inevitably back to Kate and when the writer hits the far end of the second beach he slows and then finally stops – gasping for breath both because he hasn't done this in too long a period of time – and because he's suddenly struggling with a cascade of recent images in his head.

His daily six o'clock fifteen minute dose of home – the surveillance footage loop from New York of both Alexis and Kate – is proving to be a bit of mixed blessing.

One the up side of the equation - it's absolutely his lifeline in this surreal prison of his where every day just merges with the last one and the novelist struggles with his isolation - constantly fighting loneliness and the onset of depression in his efforts to remain sane. Seeing both of their faces on all those screens – all dated and time-stamped and every day is very reassuring - and Castle plays a game with himself each time where he quickly as possible tries to identify each and every location they appear to be – giving himself mental points on those rare occasions when he thinks he manages to nail them all.

But the down side has proven to be pretty gut wrenching at times as he's silently witnessed both Kate and Alexis in the act of breaking down – usually in the relative privacy of empty elevators or in quiet corridors or corners he doesn't recognize; and then yesterday he's sure he witnessed something he never ever thought – never dreamed he might see.

It hits him that maybe this is why he can't write any more today – why he's antsy and feeling the urge to _move_ so badly - because what he saw he cannot decide on any level how he feels about it – but he's pretty darn positive that yesterday what he saw recorded was Kate Beckett's return to the NYPD.

She's gone back – he's absolutely convinced of it from the footage he viewed of her that appeared to be her in the Twelfth precinct's bullpen with a gun holster attached to her hip. And of course he's only guessing – but he imagines the motivation for her to do this is purely a need for some clout – some power – some _right _to actively participate in the hunt for him. It scares him because he fears that brings her closer – puts her more in danger from Valez surely? And yet Valez believes Castle is dead – so maybe that's protection enough – but still . . . it puts Kate back _there_ and he's - he's just flat out freaked out about that.

And there's nothing he can do.

Yeah. So he needs to run again. He's about to start back the way he came but just then there is a sound from above and behind him, some small rocks from the cliff at his back skittering downwards and tumbling freely to join him on the sand. His gaze is instantly drawn up, and the writer is startled to find Gabor free-climbing the sheer cliff over his head – and doing it . . . downwards, by the looks of it.

_Wow._

Castle stands clear and watches with rapt attention as his sixty-something father pulls a complete 'Derrick Storm' right there in front of him, descending the rock face quickly and agilely so that he can join his son on the warm sand below. The CIA agent leaps from the cliff when he reaches the last ten feet or so – landing quietly and with cat-like precision barely five feet from the author – a smug smile dancing in his vibrant eyes as they rise to seek his son's face.

There's a part of him that really doesn't want to reveal it, but the geek in him totally wins out and Castle can't help but look impressed.

"Wow." He tells Gabor. "That was . . . something."

The older man grins, and it's one of those weird uncanny moments when his son can't help but see his heritage clearly in the other man – not just the very obvious things like his build and his height and his eyes - but the more subtle indicators like the way his eyes crinkle up sometimes, and the curve of his mouth now as he smiles.

"You liked that huh?" Gabor asks him.

Castle nods, grinning now himself. "I didn't know you were back." He says, and he may not be aware of it but Gabor can hear the relief evident in his tone.

The agent has been absent once more since the day after he revealed the villa's hidden surveillance room and presented the novelist with the typewriter to use – he just seems to vanish overnight and obvious he can return just as mysteriously.

"Are you . . . are you back for long?" Castle inquires, hoping his voice is more even in reality than it internally sounds to him, Gabor is still his only company here - but even beyond that - it might be somewhat wary – but Castle honestly can't help it – he actually likes the man.

He understands what his mother must have seen in the young Gabor – once the harden spy shell is case aside – because there is a warmth and a fun – a sense of adventure about the man that virtually oozes out of his pores. He doesn't have the same sense of 'innocence' inherent in him that his son has managed to retain – but Castle imagines it was once there – when he was young, in the person who met Martha Rodgers. Castle can see now how the two of them could so easily have fallen for each other in day. It's a strange sort of sensation, but there's something 'relieving' for him in finally being able to picture _both_ of his parents – together and in love.

Gabor dodges the question though and instead arches his eyebrow at Castle.

"Are you out . . . running?" He asks.

Castle nods – defensively.

"Yeah . . . so?"

The spy grins again and clasps Castle on the shoulder.

"So . . . nothing." He replies. "It's just good for me to see you taking care of yourself Richard. Honestly – I confess I've been worrying – and that's something I rarely tend to do – believe me in my line of work it's a pointless exercise, but it seems when it comes to you I can still manage it. I'm just relieved to come back and find you writing and staying active - that's all."

The writer's defensive posture softens.

"I just . . . . I needed to move." He says by way of explanation.

His father watches him assessingly and then just nods.

By unspoken agreement the two men begin head back towards the other end of the beach and the headland that will lead them to return to the villa. They walk in silence for a few minutes until Castle realizes that there is at least one burning question he does need an answer to - the one that's been eating him up inside all day.

"I need you to tell me if what I think I saw on the surveillance is true. I think Kate's gone back to the NYPD." He says it quietly, stopping on the sand and turning bright blue eyes full of fear and contradictions on his companion.

Something passes across his father's face that he can't for the moment decipher, and then the older man masks whatever it is, because he's almost emotionless when he speaks.

"Yes. I didn't expect it of her - but she has."

The novelist bites his lip.

"Because of me. Because I'm missing?" He clarifies.

The CIA agent nods and Castle closes his eyes.

_Oh God Kate._

"Your disappearance – what Valez still thankfully believes is your murder has been given over to the purview of the FBI. I didn't tell you but that happened almost immediately. You're a high profile individual - you vanishing was never going to go unnoticed. The FBI - I honestly don't know where they're getting their intel from but for some reason they've stuck Kate at the top of their suspect list – with regards to you. I can tell you they are treating it more like a murder than a missing person's case. Which is good Richard – any way you come at it - it helps our cause with Valez, because he's sitting back and watching all of it unfold and he's loving every minute of this right now."

Tortured blue eyes fly open at this, and Castle's face contorts with incredulity.

"The FBI is operating under the premise that Kate . . . that she _murdered_ me?"

"Yes."

The writer snorts.

"That's . . . seriously that's - ridiculous."

Gabor nods.

"I agree. But I assure you that from monitoring their investigation as well I can that they do. Kate must think so too because it's clear she's gone back to the NYPD purely to regain a legitimate sort of access. It's not her case, but your old team is certainly doing an admirable job of keeping the pressure on the FBI to share leads - bugging them for updates and developments and using their own access to police reports and databases to keep track of any reported sightings of you."

Castle's eyes light up.

"There are reported sightings of me?" He blurts out, looking intrigued.

"You've been gone for five weeks - of course people have reported 'seeing' you. That surprises you . . . really? You've worked with law enforcement for years - you must know how spurious these reports can tend to be." Gabor replies.

Castle nods.

"Well . . . yes. I guess it's just weird now that it's . . . well - me." He says.

Gabor laughs.

"Understandable."

The writer sobers.

"When did she go back?" He asks. "I mean how long after you took me did it take until she . . . "He trails off.

"Had to do something." Gabor finishes for him.

His son sighs, and the spy swears he can feel the weight of anguish behind it.

"Yeah. I just can't believe she'd go back - without me there to . . . it worries me – I feel like she's naked and unprotected and - alone." His voice breaks on the last word.

"She has great partners." Gabor points out. "And she loves you Richard. I confess I should have seen it too, because this is - when you think about it exactly what she would feel she needs to do."

The writer nods unhappily.

"She was just so happy you know. So free of all of it . . . before - I mean. She walked away from that whole life in order to build a better life with me - and now because of me she's been thrown right back in. And I hate it."

The silence stretches between them.

"I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry Richard." His father says softly.

Castle looks at him – sees the genuine sorrow he's feeling reflected back at him in his father's identical eyes.

"I know you are." He says resigned. "I know I am too."


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: Back to school has been accomplished – hallelujah - updates should go more smoothly and be much more often now that the kids are back to regularly scheduled programming! Speaking of which – hurry the f*#k up September 24th!**

* * *

**Chapter Sixteen: **Even if the world is burning darling, I won't let you go.

* * *

When her partners arrive at work they share a knowing glance with one another before they approach Kate Beckett, who's sitting at her desk.

It's barely seven o'clock, they themselves are both crazy early for work – and yet neither one of them is even the slightest bit surprised that Kate is already here before them. In fact they knew she would be – it's why Espo grabbed her coffee and Ryan took care of the bear-claw.

In some things they've learned to long accept her absolute predictability. And her most endearing predictable behavior is her blind, steadfast devotion to her missing lover, her missing half. Her absolute unwavering determination to keep on 'keeping on' until that day she brings him home.

Smiling briefly at each other the two guys each place their gift on the worn wooden surface of the desk in front of her. Then they pointedly wait for her, until she stops staring intently at the manuscript cradled in her hands and looks up to acknowledge both that they've come in early – and what they've brought her.

In true Beckett fashion it doesn't take long for the distinctive smell of quality coffee to have its desired effect.

Kate's head suddenly snaps up, green eyes searching for and almost instantly landing on the coffee cup, and then as she sees they've brought her breakfast, she takes a moment to just smile before she looks up at them waiting so patiently for her.

"Thanks guys." She murmurs, depositing the novel onto the desk and reaching out two handed to snag the take-out coffee cup eagerly.

Ryan grins and tells her she's welcome before he heads off for his desk, but Espo studies her shrewdly a moment longer – before he decides to sit down in the seat next to her.

"You look really tired Beckett." He says gently, before he risks asking - "How are you holding up?"

He's kind of expecting to see her tense up, or flash a look that's tinged a little helpless, but although she does indeed look wiped – which in his mind is beyond tired – instead there is a soft light in her eyes, quiet and calming; it pulls at him.

"You had a better night." He states – before she can answer his original question.

Kate nods.

"Yeah, actually I did - good dream." She confesses.

_Ah. That explains it – Castle_.

"But you couldn't get back to sleep again afterwards." He says. It's not really a question, not the way he's stating it - but she shakes her head at him anyways.

"No. Not at all - way too much on my mind – and too many questions preying on me demanding answers I haven't found."

Javi nods solemnly before he pushes the bagged bear-claw across the desk at her.

"Feed your brain then Beckett – breakfast of champions and tired cops right here."

She grins at that – knowing Espo's own fondness for the sugary, starchy, seriously unhealthy deep-fried things.

"You ate one yourself this morning already – didn't you?"

"Duh."

She takes an exaggerated large bite just to make the point that she's eating it, follows it with another large swallow of latte and waits for Espo to return to his desk – but he stays.

"How are we planning on attacking this thing today?" He asks.

And that's a good point – she thinks – isn't it. Captain Gates might have given them all the entire day yesterday to devote to figuring out the riddle of the novel – but they can't – shouldn't – count on her being so magnanimous about it today. It isn't their case and a body could potentially be dropped on them at any minute. She shrugs.

"I'm not sure – honestly I just want to keep reading, keep on moving through the plot and see where we get to – but this is kinda of not a work thing – as much as I personally think it should be. Gates was actually pretty great about it all yesterday – I'm not sure how far any of us are willing to push our luck?"

Espo looks quickly around the mostly deserted bullpen before leans in.

"Ryan and I already talked about it; we figured one of us could work whatever comes in while the other one carries on with the book. Ryan is the obvious choice to keep reading – being that he's the king of all media and a little 'Castillion' to boot. If he hangs out here it all looks pretty normal – you and I can technically head out together if something comes in, and that will totally throw Gates off the case."

She thinks about it – but Kate ends up shaking her head.

"I don't want trouble for Ryan – and maybe we should just talk to Gates – see what she's willing to let us do?"

Esposito shoots her glance 'who are you and what have you done with Kate Beckett'.

"Stop looking at me like that. I'm trying to do everything the right way on this – no rushing, no judgment, just working slowly through it all and letting it come to me, and doing it right has to include the Captain to because I don't want to take chances – I can't screw this up."

Javi shakes his head at her.

"You know she ain't gonna give us anymore time – she's going to make us go back to actual homicide cases – hell Beckett you should know this. Yesterday was a moment of compassion, she's going to want us to go right back to working this on our own time like we've been doing for months – and I can't shake this feeling that time is of the essence with this thing right now. Any delay – I just have a bad vibe about it."

And this is of course very much Kate's fear as well – she sighs.

"So you're feeling that too?" She asks.

Espo nods.

"It's like ice down my spine Kate. Like a sick dread weighing on me. I can't explain it – but if we're going to bring Castle home safely – the time is just right now, and there is none of it to waste."

Beckett bites her lip.

"You're right – but I can't help but feel we have to have Gates with us on this. It's the right thing to do."

Javi blows out a frustrated breath.

"We're gonna get a case – it's only a matter of time. A live Castle should take precedence over a dead anybody else."

Kate nods.

"And that's exactly what we tell her."

Espo snorts.

"Puh-lease . . . like she's gonna listen."

The two partner's stare at each other unblinking, until Ryan interrupts them.

"We might not have to go that route." He offers, and there is something about his face, about the poorly concealed smugness of his grin in an expression that's trying way to hard for 'innocence' that calls to Kate.

Her eyebrow arches and she spins in her chair until she can face him.

The young detective has his copy of 'Heat Lost' held tightly in the fingers of his right hand; the fingers of his left are . . . twitching

It's an obvious 'tell'.

"Oh my God." She says, "You've found something else – haven't you."

Busted - Ryan drops the pretense.

"Yeah." He says, and he's full on smiling now.

"Yeah I think I have – and while really what I've found is not actually a smiling matter – I think it's a pretty major clue and I've a hunch it solves our problem of wanting to work on this with Gates. In fact I'm thinking it's potentially so huge we might just be able to haul this entire case back into our purview."

Kate jumps to her feet.

"How?" She demands. "I'm telling you Castle isn't dead – this isn't a homicide."

Ryan grabs her arm, shakes his head.

"Hey – stay calm – that isn't what I'm saying. But I think his disappearance might be connected to a murder – and that would give us the leverage to work it – now wouldn't it!"

Kate nods around a silent 'oh' and Espo just frowns.

"Who's our homicide?" He asks.

"And how does it connect to Castle?" Asks Kate.

Kevin Ryan smiles, but then changes his expression to a slight grimace when he realizes how the smile is gonna look when he tells them.

"The stiff is – or was one of our own." He says. "And when I tell you who you'll immediately see the connection to Castle - our murder victim is . . . Detective Ethan Slaughter."

Both of Ryan's partners frown now.

"Slaughter?" Beckett's face is somewhat stunned – it's a name none of them has heard or thought of in half a year.

Esposito shakes his head as if Ryan has lost it.

"That SOB died in a gang shootout six months ago Ryan – caught in the crossfire. An accident, a total case of wrong place, wrong time – which for Slaughter was usually how things worked out for whichever unfortunate cop got stuck with him. His death was just karma man – pure karma."

Kevin shakes his head.

"Not according to page one forty seven it isn't."

Kate spins, grabbing for own copy.

"You're telling me Slaughter's death is in the book?" She asks, as she flips through the pages looking for the right one.

"Well he's changed the name, but the next body in the book is 'Nathan Butcher' a really nasty gang-cop whose physical description nails Slaughter to a tee. Even the name guys – I mean come on – Nathan/Ethan it's practically the same name – 'butcher' is just another word for 'slaughter'."

"Okkayyy." Espo clearly isn't buying it.

But Kate finds the passage in the book finally and once she's read it she looks up, her eyes shining with excitement.

"I get it." She says nodding at Ryan.

"I don't." Javi grumbles, "So share Beckett."

"The circumstances of the 'Butcher' character's death are _exactly_ the same as those of Detective Slaughter – I mean it's exactly what happened to him Esposito – exactly. And it's a random occurrence at this point in the book, seemingly unrelated to the four homicides Nikki and Rook are working."

"So?" Javi asks.

Ryan and Beckett shared a frustrated look.

"When Slaughter was killed I'd been off the force for months Javi, I didn't even hear about it until after I came back."

Esposito still looks blank. "I'll say it again – so?"

Kate smiles.

"So you tell me Javier Esposito – how in the world does Castle know?"


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: Forgive me, forgive me if I didn't manage to PM you a response to your review if you kindly left me one – and please still continue to leave me them – as they honestly make my day.**

* * *

**Chapter Seventeen: **Now it seems I'm awake in this dream.

* * *

_Two months and three weeks ago . . ._

* * *

His arms are trembling with the strain and the sweat is pouring off of him, but Castle forces his tired body to complete yet another push-up, and only when that mission has been accomplished does the novelist finally give into the burning in his arms, flopping face first onto the sand – which he then promptly gets a mouthful of.

Laughing to himself for not keeping it closed, he rolls over and relaxes on his back instead. Staring up at the cloudless Grecian sky above him, he focuses solely on his breathing – on the sensation of his heart slowing steadily back to a normal rhythm in the aftermath of his workout.

A solid month of pushing himself daily has the writer's body in better shape than he's been in for years, and Castle has to admit – it feels really damn good. Even his brain feels sharper and more focused, and the hours he's spent writing, almost completing in fact the initial draft of his novel, have gone by easier than ever before as a result.

It's also helped enormously with his sense of isolation and the oftentimes crippling pain that comes along with missing Kate – so he's driven himself hard – every day, constantly focused on keeping busy and almost never permitting himself the time or the luxury of nothing to do.

He's about to get up off the sand and head back to the villa for a shower when a shadow falls ominously across his face – blocking out the warmth of the sun. The writer squints, his eyes adjusting quickly, and panic recedes as he recognizes that it's his father standing over him. In fact he's relieved by the sight as normal – because this time he hasn't seen the CIA agent in over three weeks.

Sitting up quickly the smile of welcome on the writer's face pales to concern as his eyes travel over his father's form and take note of both the slightly grey tinge to the older man's complexion and the black sling that is immobilizing the spy's left arm.

"Gabor," he says fearfully. "What's happened?"

The other man remains momentarily silent, choosing instead to seat himself gingerly next to his son on the warm sand. Once he's settled however, he looks over at Castle and attempts to sound reassuring.

"I'll get to that," he says gently. "Tell me Richard – how have _you_ been?"

Castle frowns.

"I'm fine," he says tersely. "So for the love of God don't beat around the bush. _You _clearly are not fine – and as I seriously don't want to be stuck in this place forever, naturally that concerns me. So just tell me – _please_ – what the hell happened to you?"

Gabor sighs and turns his gaze from Castle to the ocean.

"I was shot," he says simply.

The agent hears the rapid and frightened inhale of his son next to him, followed by a string of expletives that actually serve to make Gabor huff out a small laugh.

"Richard?" he says.

Castle's mouth has firmed into a thin line. "What?"

"It's not the first time," he explains. "And I'm pretty doubtful that it'll be the last."

The novelist's frown deepens, bright eyes flashing.

"Yeah? Well that isn't exactly reassuring."

The agent shrugs, but a wince of pain flashes sharply across his features before he manages to once more school his expression.

From that wince however, his son deduces that it's most likely that the gunshot was to the shoulder. So he reaches out tentatively and grasps hold of Gabor by his uninjured elbow.

"Seriously," he says softly, "unless this is something that's classified – I'd really like to know what went on."

Gabor studies his son's earnest features, notes the genuine concern for his well-being that's hovering in those oh-so-blue eyes – and it warms him. How very real that distress is. His son is worried – about him, and it's been so many years since anyone worried about him that it startles him now, how great it feels. Most especially because it's coming from one of the only two people left on earth that the spy loves. Not that he's ever dreamed of having his son love him in return – he doesn't dare dream about it even now. But his son does care – and that's . . . everything.

So the spy smiles.

"I wasn't planning on hiding any of it from you Rick," he says, using the shortened form of his son's name for the first time. "In fact we have a lot to talk about you and I. And some plans to make in fact. There have been some disturbing developments and I've come to the conclusion that I'm going to have to call upon you for your help."

Surprised, Castle nods. "Whatever I can do," he replies.

Gabor nods once and then pushes himself slowly to his feet, his customary cat-like grace somewhat lacking. Beside him, the novelist jumps up also, and then both men head towards the villa as they make their way up the sand.

* * *

Showered and starving Castle heads through the now familiar hallways of the CIA lair and down the stairs from the upper floor – he joins his father in the kitchen.

He has to hide a smirk when he finds Dianthe – the Greek housekeeper – fussing over Gabor like a mother-hen and kicking him away from the stove so she can cook for them.

Effectively banished – Gabor greets Castle with an eye-roll, and the two men do as they have apparently been bid and wait for their food at the table outside.

"So . . ." Castle begins, dropping down onto the stone wall of the patio and popping an olive from the table into his mouth, he looks over at his father inquisitively.

"So . . ." Gabor echoes. "I think we have a thorny problem," he begins.

Unable to help itself, Castle's stomach lurches. "Kate . . ."

"Is fine," his father replies. But then his mouth twists into an apology and he says, "For now."

"Uh oh – I don't think I like the sound of this at all . . ."

The CIA agent holds his hand up to forestall the writer in his tracks.

"She's fine Richard. But we both know that Valez is eventually going to tire of watching her suffer without you, and once that occurs he still plans on erasing her. And in the meantime I have a bad feeling about the entirety of the CIA op. I was shot while meeting with Valez in Mexico. It was a scheduled check-in with him – and I know damn well it was another agent who tried to take me out."

The novelist looks stunned.

"Wait, one of your own people tried to kill you?" He asks.

His father nods.

"I'm sure of it. No-one else outside of Valez and the agency even knew I was there. And while they staged it to make it look like an attack on Valez' compound, the shots were too wild and not a single other person was hit. I know an agency instruction when I see one – even though I suspect this was someone rogue - unsanctioned."

"I don't follow."

"I have enemies Richard, and the CIA is a twisted web of opportunists. No-one knows everything that is going on – and for good reason on the whole. But something isn't right with this. Originally I was just supposed to liaise with Valez until we got him to turn over the names of the major Mexican cartel players. In return for his cohorts – Valez gets a free pass, but he also knows that once he's handed over that information, there is no guarantee the CIA will continue to let him operate. And if I wasn't his liaison – whichever agent replaced me would be in position to make huge sums of money by delaying things indefinitely. They could effectively control not only Valez but a huge portion of his business by helping him string this out."

Castle nods.

"So you think someone – within the CIA is effectively after your assignment? " He asks.

"For starters – yes," the agent replies.

"And how does this knock-on to affect me?"

"You need this op completed the same as I do Richard. You can't return until Cesar Valez is no longer a threat to you or to Kate and I haven't been able to take him out until the agency's mission has been realized. Any delay now hastens the likelihood that Valez takes his revenge on Kate _before_ we're finished with him."

The novelist immediately grasps the problem.

"And he kills her," he whispers. "You cannot allow that to happen!" He begs.

The spy stands. "I don't intend too." He heads into the kitchen and when he returns he's holding the current draft of Castle's novel in his hands.

"I took the liberty of grabbing this from your room while you were in the shower," he confesses, placing the unfinished manuscript on the table between them.

"I flicked through it," he says with a soft smile. "Forgive me . . . it's good."

Castle shrugs.

"We need to use it Rick," his father tells him – sitting back down.

"Use it . . . for what? And how?"

Gabor smiles. "To take Valez out of the equation another way," he answers. "I don't care any longer about what the agency wants from this bastard. And I don't care about the completion of my mission. What I care about is _you_. And I've been trying to balance my life, my job - with protecting you and watching it crush you – you and Kate – in the process, and I can't do that any longer. Not when I don't completely trust what the agency is doing here and when there's the possibility that I might be taken out. Who gives your life back to you both then?" He says passionately.

Castle nods.

"Good point," he replies. "So what do you intend to do?" He asks.

The spy looks down at the novel and brushes his fingers reverently over the pages, and there is no mistaking the pride evident in features as he gazes down at his son's work.

"Give Kate the ammunition she needs to remove the threat posed by Cesar Valez herself," he says.

"Okay – great. But how?" Castle says questioningly.

"If she could arrest him – have him prosecuted for the murder of Detective Slaughter – he would effectively become useless to the CIA. And more importantly – no longer a threat to either of you," Gabor tells him.

"Okay, I can see that," Castle replies. "But what does this have to do with my book?"

"Absolutely everything my son. Valez is watching her. The FBI are watching her – hell I suspect I'm not the only member of the CIA watching her now, and there is no-one we can trust. Everything has to be considered suspect, so whatever we need to tell her it has to be completely safely coded and given to her in a manner that even if it falls into the wrong hands becomes useless - because it's in a form that only she can break."

Castle smiles.

"And that's where the book comes in," he says.

Gabor nods.

"Exactly. Everything we need her to know has to be hidden within the story – disguised within the pages – unbreakable and unreadable to any but her."

The writer looks thoughtful.

"Not just her," he responds. "But just Kate and her team. We're a unit – we function better together and I know I can trust them."

Gabor bites his lip. "This is your life," he says hesitantly. "Yours and Kate's."

"She'll involve them anyway, and Esposito and Ryan . . . they're unassailable."

The spy smiles.

"Alright. Now the question is to you Rick . . . can you do it? Can you take the information I can provide you with and weave it into what you've already written here?" Gabor asks.

At this, Castle's smile becomes truly huge.

"Oh hell yeah," he says. "Just you watch me."


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: I hope I managed to thank everyone who signed their reviews last chapter – your continued enthusiasm and support mean the world to me.**

* * *

**Chapter Eighteen: **Just show me the way and I'll meet you there.

* * *

Esposito smiles at her. "So what you're saying is that we need to start digging up everything we can about the dearly departed Detective Slaughter?"

Kate nods, smiling back broadly. "Yeah," she says, excited. "That's exactly what I'm proposing we do."

* * *

They bring what they've learned so far immediately before Captain Gates, and as they slowly go through the novel – and all its clues – with her, it becomes obvious to the three of them that their boss gets progressively more and more impressed with each new clue.

By the time she's been as brought up to speed as they can get her, she's eyeing Beckett and the manuscript both - with something akin to wonder painted across her usually stern features.

And Kate can't help but think her boss is a far prettier woman when she allows herself smiles, downright lovely in fact.

"So how are you intending to proceed Detective?" Gates inquires, once everything they've learned thus far has been presented to her.

Kate looks eager and she smiles. "Actually we came to ask you for your advice sir," she says. "Castle's clues are clearly warning us to be very careful what we do, but at the same time they also indicate that Slaughter's death was in fact a homicide and that his disappearance is directly linked to it. Obviously I want to investigate that homicide, but first we need to establish corroborating proof that it really was one."

Gates nods her head slowly, her dark intelligent gaze turned momentarily inwards; so Kate and the boys wait patiently for her to reach a decision.

At length the Captain makes one. "I concur with your findings Detective. Taking into consideration that Mr. Castle has no reason to even be aware of Detective Slaughter's demise; the fact that he's included such thinly veiled blow by blow account of it in his book is enlightening. And while Ethan Slaughter might have been a rather nasty piece of work – he was still one of us, and the murder of a cop will not be ignored."

"No sir."

Gates stands and returns Kate's copy of the manuscript. "Get a court order to exhume Slaughter's body. That novel might be pretty flimsy as 'probable cause' but Slaughter had no family and there won't be any opposition. Once you have that Detective, let's play this as close to the chest as possible – you should ensure Dr. Parish conducts the autopsy."

Kate nods, standing too. "We'll get right on it, sir."

"And Beckett," she calls, when Kate's already opening the Captain's office door. Kate turns back.

"Yes sir?"

Gates is smiling again. "Really impressive work Detective, now let's solve this thing - bring our missing team member home."

Kate can't help but be touched as Gates includes Castle this way.

"You got it sir," she says happily.

* * *

Back in the bullpen Ryan and Esposito look at her waiting for instructions, which Kate issues as she picks up the phone to call Judge Markaway. "Esposito, pull Slaughter's jacket – I wanna know everything we can possibly learn about his record. Who he arrested, every partner he ever had, every single person he might have managed to piss off on the job," she tells him.

Espo doesn't manage to contain the half smirk, half grimace that stretches across his handsome face.

"You know that's gonna be an awfully long list right?"

She shrugs. "I know," she says, agreeing with him. "Ryan. . . "

"Yes boss?"

"I need you to start looking into Slaughter's life away from the force. Financials, romantic entanglements, family background – everything. We're going to have to take his life apart piece by piece guys so that we can solve this thing. If we can do that – I think we might just make it okay for Castle to come home."

Ryan nods.

And as her partners leave her desk to go and begin, Kate's call to the courthouse goes through.

"Judge Markaway, please," she tells the clerk with relish. "It's Detective Kate Beckett calling. . ."

* * *

Esposito is the first one to get back to her with information because pulling Slaughter's records is the fastest thing to do. With Ryan still putting in requests and running the usual background information, Kate and Javi set up shop in the conference room.

They divide the work up. Kate takes Slaughter's arrests history and Esposito gets his official police employee file, lengthy complaints history and his four run-ins with IAB included.

"How was this guy even still on the force?" He exclaims, looking completely disgusted as he reads the IAB file through.

"Hmmm," Kate says looking up.

"I mean I knew about him Beckett. I worked the gang task force, and I'd seen him around – even been in on a few busts with him while putting in my time there. But man, IAB investigated this guy a bunch of times. There are accusations of bribery and corruption, excessive uses of force, even alleged jury tampering," he says appalled. "You name it; Slaughter seems to have been accused of it at some point or another. But beyond getting busted down a pay grade a few times for some minor infraction they could actually prove, no-one seems to have been able to make anything stick to this guy."

Kate makes a face.

"Yet his arrest history is – and I hate admitting this – but it's impressive. At least on the surface it is – and maybe that answers your question Espo, despite his questionable methods he got things done. What makes me uncomfortable reading this is that we know first hand – from Castle's experiences with him – that Slaughter just wanted to nail a bad guy, and having them actually be guilty of what he could nail them for didn't appear to matter to him. So now all these arrests seem suspect to me, I find I can't that sense of conviction that should be there about any of them," she says wearily.

"Makes for an endless list of suspects too," Javier adds. "We're gonna have to check release dates for every one of those people, because guilty or innocent they could have had a beef with him."

"What does his jacket say about his partners?" Beckett asks.

Javi frowns. "That he had way too many of them," he replies. "And they either ended up dead, or immediately filed a request for a transfer away from him."

"How many of us did he get killed?"

The Latino detective's eyes darken. "Five," he answers. "Yet another reason right there why he should have been fired. I mean, how does IAB ever justify a cop being that careless about the lives of other cops assigned to work with him? Stone cold man – that's just stone cold . . ."

Beckett looks over at her own partner with compassion. "You're right," she says. "You're right. But Javi, if we're correct and he was murdered, the relatives of every single one of those dead partners are going to have to be brought in."

Espo mumbles something about 'justifiable homicide' under his breath, and Kate doesn't really disagree with him, but they have a much bigger purpose here.

"For Castle's sake," Kate tells him, and Esposito looks back up from the file.

"You have to remember all of this is not really about Slaughter here," she pleads quietly to him. "While I don't hold with resorting to murder - not for anything, this is entirely about Castle for me. We are doing all of this for him."

Javi nods.

"Yeah okay," he responds, smiling again now. "For Castle I can do this," he says, and dives right back in.

* * *

Judge Markaway signs Kate's 'Order of Exhumation' that afternoon. He doesn't ask any questions, doesn't refer to Castle in any way, but he smiles a sincerely gentle smile at Kate when he sees her.

"Hang in there Detective," is his departing remark as she's exiting the door.

The body is in Lanie's expert hands by morning, and it's only hours later that the team at the Twelfth get the call.

* * *

"I've got interesting information for you," Lanie tells her after Kate answers.

"Just tell me it was murder Lane, that's all I'm asking for," Beckett replies anxiously. "You tell me it was a murder, and I've really got a place to go – a real chance that if I can solve this, the end result brings Rick home."

Dr. Parish doesn't waste any time.

"Oh it was definitely murder alright Kate – of that I'm a hundred percent sure. Now grab those two boys I know are listening, and get your skinny asses down to my morgue. I've got ballistics re-running the slugs that were pulled outta your boy here – but there are some interesting details about the shots that killed Detective Slaughter that I'd rather show than tell you," she says.

"We'll be right there," Kate replies, before she hangs up the phone triumphantly. She then turns a happier smile on her partners than they've seen in five months, and the resultant relief that washes over the guy's faces is just amazing to see.

They have a case now.

"Castle was right," she tells them. "Slaughter's death is undoubtedly a homicide – Lanie says she can prove it and she wants us down at the morgue, says there's something compelling about the shots that killed him that we need to see."


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N: Thanks again guys for your PM's, your reviews and your continued support.**

* * *

**Chapter Nineteen: '**cause I know I've been gone too long.

* * *

_Two months ago . . ._

Castle watches Gabor from the terrace of his room. The spy is running the length of the beach in spurts, his injured shoulder free of the sling (which it shouldn't be), clearly the CIA agent is pushing himself hard to recover. It has the effect of making his son smile, because in moments like these the novelist can't help but think how much his father reminds him in some ways of Kate.

They are both obsessive by nature, physically driven to stay in peak physical condition and could each of them kick his ass handicapped, with their hands strapped behind their backs, and probably do it effortlessly.

It makes him wonder if he could do something about that. Because although he's now starting to really see and feel the benefits of all the time he's been putting into getting back into shape while he's been stuck here, and although he's already an expert marksman – in a hand to hand combat situation, Castle isn't afraid to admit he'd be hopelessly out of his depth. Punching out Hal Lockwood aside, which was a combination of luck, surprise and adrenaline, more and more these days, Castle wants to feel empowered - probably because of the threat still looming over his life. He's sick of the sensation that he's helpless in certain instances, and he's thinking that it really doesn't need to be so.

Smiling, he heads down to check-in with Gabor on the beach; he thinks its past time he learnt a whole lot more about self-defense – especially if he has the added bonus of his own CIA handler to teach him.

* * *

Gabor waves with his good arm when Rick is still fifty feet away, halting the authors approach in its tracks. The CIA agent sprints the remaining distance between them and then drops like a stone when he reaches Castle, landing swiftly on the sand. It startles his son for just a moment, but then he notices the agent is laughing and so Castle decides to settle himself on the beach beside him.

"What's so funny?" he asks, smiling back at the older man, who's now stretched out flat on his back, breathing heavily and yet still chuckling.

Gabor waves the inquiry off momentarily, until he manages to stop gasping.

"I –am – getting – too – old-" He chokes out finally. "I keep pushing it, but this body of mine has seen a hard life Rick, and recovery from something like this gunshot just becomes slower each time for me. Still, I keep on fighting," he says, sighing dramatically.

The writer studies Gabor's face for moment.

"Maybe you should think about retiring?" he suggests, jesting.

But then Gabor surprises him. "Maybe I should," he agrees

Something hangs thick and unspoken in the air between them then; something that somehow feels vaguely like a promise from father to son. A promise that maybe, some way - when they've gotten completely through this, their newly forged relationship might be allowed to carry on.

"How's the book coming?" Gabor asks, breaking the stretching moment, as he pushes himself up awkwardly into a sitting position, rolling his eyes at Castle who's raising an eyebrow at him and clearly making a face that says, 'where is your sling?'.

The author frowns.

"Remember back when I was so brash and overly confident that whatever information you gave me I could work it into the narrative without a beat – hide it in plain sight for only Kate and the boys to see, and then easily carry on while simultaneously producing a best-seller without any problems whatsoever?"

His father smirks.

"Yeah," he nods. "I definitely remember that Rick."

Castle pushes his hands through his hair, mussing it – he's clearly frustrated by his novel's progress and he's already being asked to cope with a lot so Gabor loses the grin and tries to look sympathetic.

"Hey, it's alright," he says. "We can't send the book to Kate until at least another month has passed anyway. Valez has indicated a huge drug shipment is planned for the beginning of May, the largest single amount of cocaine any of the cartels have ever attempted to move across the border in one go. Rick I haven't yet gotten out of him the players behind it, and we can't risk removing the threat of him until I do – okay? I'm watching him with regards to Kate, so you still have time and you have to be patient a little."

They've previously discussed this, the author isn't happy about any delay, but at the same time he's not ready with the manuscript anyway.

"Turns out I have a big mouth," he confesses, looking sideways at Gabor who's watching him with interest. "I mean I'm getting there, but the ending of the book is all messed up now, the pieces just don't fit. This is so important and I know it needs to be perfect to work – it's just, it isn't so easy."

Gabor reaches out and squeezes his son's shoulder.

"I don't imagine for a moment that it is Rick – but if any writer can manage this, you'd be the one to do it," he says.

Castle crinkles up his nose into a slight frown.

"Thanks – I think," he kind of mumbles. "I mean I am flattered that you think so but . . . "

"You don't think I have any idea what I'm talking about," Gabor says interrupting.

Castle shrugs. "Well quite honestly - not really, no."

The CIA agent starts laughing again, deliberately so as he tries for his son's sake to lighten the suddenly somber mood. He waits until the frown finally slips from Castle's face, replaced by a bemused but open expression instead. Then he asks -

"Where do you imagine your literary talent comes from?" His blue eyes are twinkling with that a look that Castle knows now, the one that says he's about to reveal something the author is going to love.

"Mother." The writer answers immediately, his mouth lifting.

His father pretends to think about that, but then he wrinkles his nose and shakes his head.

"Your mother is certainly supremely talented in her field, without a doubt," Gabor agrees. "But actually I'm the one with the PHD in Literature, Rick."

Castle's mouth drops open.

"Seriously?" He asks, looking completely stunned with his eyes as big as saucers in his handsome face.

His father nods.

"Graduated high school two full years early, finished college with a Bachelors Degree in English Lit after another two years; I had my Doctorate by the time I was twenty three Richard – I think I might have liked to teach, but instead I found myself joining the Agency."

The novelist marvels at his father for a moment, he never would have pictured this academic background for the man in a million years. In fact he thinks if he'd been writing the story, his father would have been one of those people who join the military straight out of high school, pay their dues in battle – military intelligence maybe – migrate to the CIA from there.

"Why the Agency?" he asks dumbfounded.

Gabor sighs, and Castle knows instantly there's another story there.

"For now let's just say 'family history'," he replies.

Rick's eyes light up, but Gabor pushes any further questioning away.

"Leave it there Richard," he pleads, and the pain in the older man's voice is suddenly all the explanation Castle needs.

"So, a bona fide academic approves the narrative construct of my work – interesting," he says smugly, lips quirked into a wry smile that entices his father to join him.

The spy inclines his head in agreement. "I do."

The novelist looks at him quizzically. "Shame," he says pouting somewhat, "that you don't actually write my reviews."

"It is that."

The two men fall silent for time, something they're accustomed to doing now, until Gabor pushes himself up of the sand and stretches his cooling muscles.

Castle watches him, envying his father's limber physique despite the restricted shoulder mobility still evident on his left side.

"Will you teach me something?" He blurts out.

Gabor nods. "Of course, if I can," he replies, "what is it that you want to learn?"

"How to better defend myself, hand to hand I mean."

For a moment, Castle thinks his father looks sad, but the man shakes it off very quickly and reaches out his right hand, which Castle ignores as he jumps quickly to his feet.

"Well?" he asks again.

"Richard, you shouldn't need to know that, you should be leading a quiet life, a safe life – that's what I've always wanted for you."

The writer frowns.

"But that isn't my reality," he says stubbornly, stepping closer to Gabor until they are eye to eye. "Even after this is all over Kate may chose to remain with the NYPD, and if she does you can bet I'll be right back there with her. So I want this Gabor; I want to feel like I'm as prepared as I can be for whatever threats are thrown my way from now on. You had to step in and protect me this time – I don't want that in my future."

Gabor sighs heavily.

"Richard, even if you had the full CIA field ops combat training you would have needed my help with this. Valez has an army to call on, plus he'd take you out at a distance –"

Castle interrupts him.

"I still _want_ to know. I _need _to know, and you are the one who can teach me," he insists loudly. "Let me learn this from you, you can even make it a part of your own rehab," he angles. "Please."

Two identical sets of blue eyes stare each other down as the two men stand toe to toe on the warm sand. Strangely enough it's the veteran spy who breaks.

"I guess since I've never been there to teach you anything, I can hardly refuse you this," Gabor says, relenting. "Alright Rick you win, we'll start tomorrow."

Castle arches a brow and shakes his head.

"I'd prefer if we start now -"

He doesn't get to properly finish the thought because he finds himself flat on his back, the wind totally knocked out of him and his father's uninjured right elbow pressed down so tightly across his throat he can't draw a complete breath.

Its official, he thinks to himself, his father is kind of amazing. A literary academic and an ass kicking spy - wow.

"You were saying?" Gabor asks quietly, letting up the pressure across Castle's windpipe so the writer can speak. And despite the aggressive pose the older man's eyes twinkle mischievously.

"I was saying anytime you think you can fit that in would be just fine." Castle replies.

Gabor gets off of him, and this time when he reaches out, Castle lets the injured man pull him to his feet.

"That's what I though you said."

The spy starts back up the beach and Castle just watches for a moment as his father heads for the white stone villa, before he hurries to catch up with him across the sand.


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N: I got a Firefly reference in here! I love doing that – bonus virtual cookies when you find it;)**

* * *

**Chapter Twenty: **Playing dead for so long don't make you innocent.

* * *

_"Slaughter's death is undoubtedly a homicide – Lanie says she can prove it and she wants us down at the morgue, says there's something compelling about the shots that killed him that we need to see."_

* * *

Kate and the boys virtually barrel through the doors of Lanie's morgue, like Hades with the hounds of hell on his heels. And Lanie knows she really shouldn't be smirking about it, knows how hard the last few months have been on her best friend, but she just can't help it – it feels really good to have something concrete to share with them, and to see them all looking so enthused again. Really, really good, and it even looks like Kate might have managed some sleep last night, because the gorgeous detective is looking better to Lanie's highly critical eye than she's appeared since before her partner went missing.

Kate is practically vibrating with purpose and energy, and Lanie's little smirk becomes a full blown mega-watt smile, one which Kate manages to return, and that warms the coroner's heart considerably.

"What have you got?" Kate inquires, suddenly all business, as soon as the morgue doors whoosh close behind them.

Lanie turns to the embalmed, naked and somewhat mottled body that's residing peacefully on her slab, the remains of Detective Ethan Slaughter, still such a large man even in death, just much less imposing and far less annoying.

"Personally, questions about the competency of one of my colleagues!" Lanie answers drily.

Kate's brow crinkles up in confusion at the remark. "What do you mean?" she asks.

Lanie indicates the bullet holes practically dead center of the late cop's broad chest.

"I mean, a grouping like that," she states sounding entirely disgusted. "Dead center of the upper torso and pretty much guaranteed to be lethal when you factor in the number of entry wounds, which by my count is four. I mean you tell me Kate – how does a coroner in this city receive a dead cop on their table with that many bullet holes in him 'center mass', and not even consider that it might not be a case of wrong place, wrong time?"

Kate studies the body silently shaking her head. "I don't know," she says softly, stepping closer to take a better look. "Is that the only reason you think this was a murder?" she clarifies.

Dr. Parish shakes her head.

"Nope," she says grimacing, "I'm appalled to say I've got lots more."

Esposito's face has darkened like a thunder cloud already, and Ryan looks both pissed and vaguely sick.

"More?" Espo practically growls. "You're serious? What kind of moron is this other coroner anyway?"

Lanie rolls her eyes and shrugs her dainty shoulders. "I'm not impressed either Javi, but you need to stand down and let me tell you what I know okay?"

Esposito bristles but flashes a tight-lipped grin at his ex, his shoulders visibly relaxing as he indicates that she should go ahead with her findings.

"Now he was hit in other places," she begins, "there are two other entry wounds. One in his left thigh here – and another that's a through and through on the lower right side of his body, right above his hip. Both of these are non-lethal and here's the thing – both of these shots are postmortem."

Three sets of eyes flick immediately to Lanie's and three sets of eyebrows rise.

"He was shot twice after he was already dead?" Kate asks.

Lanie nods. "The lack of blood flow in the surrounding tissue confirms it. But the really interesting thing here is the angles of all the entry wounds. They're your smoking gun Kate on the case for murder here."

The three detectives turn their attention to the body again as Lanie turns to her instrument table to grab a brightly colored surgical steel rod to better illustrate her findings. She steps up to Slaughter's discolored corpse and gently inserts the rod into the gun shot entry wound on Slaughter's thigh. The rod stands straight up. She moves around the table and does the same thing to the bullet hole above his hip, and the rod stands straight up again.

"He was on the ground, on his back when those bullets entered," says Esposito.

Lanie nods. "Exactly," she says. "These two holes are window dressing."

"What about the shots in his chest?" Ryan asks her.

"Now here's where it really gets interesting."

The petite M.E places the rod carefully into each of the wounds in Slaughter's chest, and the angle of each individual shot is the same – a steep forty degree rise.

Kate looks at Esposito. "He was shot from higher ground," she says, and her partner nods, agreeing with her.

"That's almost a sniper's angle," he says confidently. "Closer range than would be normal for a professional and these shots are from a thirty eight judging by the size of the entry wound." The Latino detective looks over at Lanie for confirmation, the M.E nods.

Espo continues, "And a sniper wouldn't use a handgun, he'd be using a rifle. My guess is the closer range was to facilitate the use of handgun here – make it look more convincing that Slaughter died getting caught in some gang-banger's shootout."

Kate nods. "He was tipped off and sent to his death," she says. "Someone was waiting for him. Someone had it all figured out. And when the Westies and the Cazadores starting shooting at each other, that someone was watching and used all the chaos to mask the fact that they took Detective Slaughter out."

Kate's eyes meet Lanie's. "Who did the original autopsy?" she asks quietly, "Is there any chance, any chance at all that this wasn't innocently missed?"

Lanie looks thoughtful, but ultimately she shrugs.

"Honestly," she answers "I want to say 'No'; no way could any coroner in New York City misses this. I'd rather believe we were dealing with a corrupt M.E who took a bribe to smother his findings. But the thing is, the M.E we're talking about is Dr. Adelei Niska, and he's way beyond the point where he should have retired and a more misanthropic miserable son-of-bitch I've never had the misfortune to meet. Hell Dr. Niska makes Perlmutter look like 'Pollyanna' in the disposition stakes."

Ryan whistles. "Seriously?"

Lanie nods. "Dead serious. Niska is a nut. He was brilliant in his younger days, but I've seen more than one case thrown out of court because his findings are lacking, and I've personally had to re-autopsy people when their deaths have been mislabeled and someone later catches on and starts screaming."

Beckett bites her lip. "So it could be that he heard Slaughter was killed in a gang shootout and when Slaughter lands on his table he just looks at the number of bullet wounds and doesn't look any further. Honestly doesn't see that the killing was clearly targeted."

"Exactly." Lanie replies apologetically. "I mean it seems pretty damn obvious it's suspicious to me, just from the chest wounds alone, but while I've heard other coroners question Niska's capability, I've never heard a single rumor that would suggest he was on the take. Now that doesn't mean you shouldn't consider it a possibility Kate – check up on him, but my gut tells me it's his incompetency that's to blame."

Kate smiles grimly. "We'll proceed with caution," she says. "Ryan-"

"Yes boss?"

"Do a financial background check on our Dr. Niska. Focus on the days surrounding Slaughter's murder, and let's rule out the possibility that Niska knew something and got paid to muzzle it. Then I want you to finish Castle's book for me – you seem to be channeling him better than I am – so finish it and tell me what else he's trying to tell me."

"On it," Ryan responds, squeezing Kate's arm and meeting her gaze briefly – acknowledging both the faith she's showing as well as the responsibility she's placing on his strong shoulders, before he darts from the room.

Esposito looks at Beckett expectantly.

"Espo, you and I are going to re-trace everything that happened on the case that Castle worked with this guy. I've been thinking about how and why Castle's disappearance could possible connect to Ethan Slaughter getting whacked. Castle always maintains that there are no coincidences and this time I think I believe him. This has to lead us back in some way to that one case Castle shadowed Slaughter on. We need to take that case apart again and find out every single person they might have interacted with over those few days. You were paying more attention than I was during that time; I'm going to need your help."

Espo nods.

"You didn't look away for long," he says gently.

Kate shakes her head. "But I deliberately looked away. I let him go and get himself involved with Slaughter when I know I could have just stopped it. I had it in my power to stop it Javi – but I let my fear and my pride get in the damn way. If we do prove that Rick was taken because of that case – how am I not the one to blame?" She asks.

"It takes two to tango," Espo retorts, but he can tell by the stubborn set of her features that Kate doesn't believe him.

The beautiful detective turns to her best-friend.

"Thanks Lanie," she says with a small smile.

The M.E smiles back. "I'll write up my findings and when ballistics gets back to me I'll page you," she says. "There might be more you can use in the bullets and the trace evidence, Kate."

"I'll wait to hear from you," Kate replies. And she and Esposito leave the stillness of the morgue behind, heading back to the Twelfth to begin their murder board, and jump truly into the fray.


	21. Chapter 21

**A/N: Minor correction has been made to the previous chapter – Lanie has sent the bullets 'originally' pulled out of Detective Slaughter BACK to ballistics to be re-examined. She did not remove the slugs from the body (Dr. Niska pulled them out during the first autopsy).**

**Also THANK YOU so much guys for the continued support & your amazing reviews - forgive me for not individually thanking you all last chapter, but I love hearing what you think, you all ROCK.**

* * *

**Chapter Twenty One: **For all of my days I'll be brave, I'll be stronger.

* * *

One month ago . . .

* * *

Sweat pours down his face, and Castle blinks to get it out of his eyes – the salt stings.

His body is bruised, aching and sore, it wants him to call it quits, to give in and just take the beating already by lying curled up into a little ball on the cool sand.

His body wants him to simply admit to his defeat.

_Never. Never gonna happen._

It's night and the beach at the foot of the villa is dark. There isn't much of a moon tonight – just a sliver that comes and goes again through the clouds that are heavy in a sky that threatens to rain. The humidity is thick in the air, cloying when you are gasping for breath as hard as he is – making it hard to breathe, like soup being pulled into your lungs.

"Have you had enough?" A voice asks quietly, darkly.

The writer forces his back to straighten and he stubbornly shakes his head, eyes his opponent with derision. "Not yet," he throws back, "you should know me better than that."

His adversary smiles at Castle, his white teeth gleaming in the gloomy darkness, his harsh face betraying now a smugness that virtually screams 'victory'. But the writer is catching a second wind and he's bound and determined, he will not go down without one hell of a fight. He knows the other man is underestimating him, and he knows exactly how he can use that to his advantage.

He just needs to pick the moment - carefully.

Because even against these stacked odds he believes that in his heart – that this victory can still be his.

The other man comes at him again and he's so fast. He moves like lightening and with years of skill under his belt and on his side, but Castle has always been a fast learner and he knows this move. He knows what's coming, and he sidesteps the attack with a freshly acquired skill, lets the man's momentum trip him up as he stumbles a little on the slippery sand.

"Nice," the man remarks, "but you're going to have to do much better than that."

He comes at Castle again, even faster this time and before the writer can think of a direction in which to turn. A strong arm wraps around his throat as he takes a swift elbow into the side, pain lancing through him bad enough that Castle sees stars for a second as the blow lands cleanly against already somewhat battered ribs. The author feels his vision blurring and he can't draw a proper breath, a combination of the tight throbbing of the pain and the pressure of the other man's arm against his neck. He can barely even think.

His knees give out and he drops like a sack of potatoes, his full weight dropping him down onto the floor. It's enough to loosen the hold his opponent has on his neck and the split second of leverage is all Castle needs now to turn this thing around.

He rolls with incredible speed to his right, the pain his body is experiencing being pushed by the brute force of his will completely out of his mind, and he springs to his feet before he rugby tackles his assailant in an ugly but effective maneuver that lands the other man on his back beneath the writer on the sand.

The other man is strong through, and very well trained, he easily blocks Castles first attempt at choking him, almost manages to just cast the writer off of him with his hands. But the writer has been taught a thing or two, knows now how to use his opponents own moves against him, he shifts his weight swiftly, keeps the man pinned down.

Castle brings his knee up and rolls a little, pulls his assailant up and shifts over him, bending the man's right arm up and behind him, locking it in an arm bar than has his opponent tapping out for clemency in seconds.

_Victory! _Castle thinks – _is mine_.

It's the first time they've ever done this that the son has been the man who's won.

Castle pushes himself, exhausted to his feet and then extends his hand out to Gabor, who's strangely enough looking up at him and grinning hugely, Gabor takes the proffered appendage and the writer hauls his father back onto his feet.

"Excellent. Rick you did it." Gabor exclaims. "You got the drop on me."

Castle is smiling, he just can't help it. He's in pain and he's bone weary, and his father is still technically not able to perform at a hundred percent, but none of it matters, it's his first win and so he'll delight in the glory of it just the same.

He breathes deep, grinning like a fool he imagines, and then he formally extends his hand for his father to shake.

"Thank you," he says to Gabor sincerely. "Thank you for helping me with this, for all these hours you've put in these last weeks to teach me. It really – I mean it _really_, means a lot to me."

The CIA operative smiles, he looks really pleased and in the darkness it's hard for Castle to truly tell, but his father looks a little bit overwhelmed suddenly. He tugs on Castle's hand without warning, and pulls his son towards him, wraps the writer up in a fierce embrace.

For a long moment Castle is stunned, he doesn't know how to react, but then he just stops his brain from over-thinking this and does what he instinctively wants to – he hugs Richard Gabor back.

"I'm so proud of you Rick." Gabor says quietly, before he releases his hold on his son, and takes a self-conscious step back.

Castle swallows hard around the lump that's suddenly taken up residence in his throat and he ducks his head, avoiding eye-contact and just nodding his appreciation of the sentiment.

The two men are about to call it a night on their sparring session when the light breeze that has been ghosting across the beach all night changes direction slightly, and the sound of a boat motor cutting out carries across the air. Gabor slows Castle's progress up the sand beside him by grabbing the novelist's arm and stilling his son in his tracks.

He tugs Castle with him quickly into the shadows created by the cliffs at this end of the shoreline, and stills his son's instinctual questions with the merest hint of a raised eyebrow, his blue eyes flashing in the darkness he emphasizes his desire for silence by raising his index finger to his lips.

Castle nods his compliance, and presses his large form closer to the rocky face rising up behind him. Both men listen intently but there is no out-of-place sound being carried in on the wind and Castle feels himself relaxing – he pushes off of the rock face and is genuinely surprised when a strong arm comes across his chest and forces him back with a dull thud.

He eyes his father in the darkness bemused, almost goes to speak but the fierce look of concentration that the CIA operative is wearing causes the words to remain lodged in his throat and die there unspoken.

Tense, the silence stretches, and Castle is surprised, but he can sense the preparedness suddenly coiling in Gabor's large strong frame, and the writer listens intently, his ears straining, because surely there must be sounds that Gabor is hearing that maybe he's not.

His father turns to look at him at this point, something is his gaze that looks almost like indecision, but then his jaw tightens perceptively and it's obvious the agent's reached a choice. Gabor pushes Castle further back, further away from the villa and towards to the water, then he steps around his son quickly, and leads the way, inching the pair of them backwards towards the blackness of the ocean, and then actually into the cold water. He tugs Castle after him as he makes his way off-shore, following the curve of the cliff out to sea.

_What the hell is going on?_

Confused as all hell, Castle fights with determination against the tide that's now pushing very strongly against his broad body, the t-shirt and shorts he's wearing not aiding his quest as soaked through they weight him down. He tries to swim quietly and with as little splashing as he can manage, while he simultaneously tries to avoid getting smacked into the craggy cliff face at his side by the surging sea in the darkness. Gabor let's go his hold on the writer's arm as he wages his own battle, but he keeps checking every couple of seconds to ensure his son remains only a few arm lengths behind him.

The two men continue to follow the coastline of the cliff, the curve of the island leaving the beach far behind them. The writer has no ideas about what's going on but he does come to realize the trust he's developed for his father goes a long way – farther than he would have imagined it seems – before tonight and this strange desertion of the relative safety of the sand.

A large wave takes the novelist unaware. Dark rain clouds are continually obscuring the slivers of moonlight that are the only illumination now as the lights of the villa that fell weakly across the beach disappear from view, and out of nowhere a particularly huge swell crashes over Castle's head in the dark.

Pain lances through the writer's left shoulder as he's hurled by the force of the water into the rocks, spluttering he re-emerges with his left arm numbing and fighting really hard not to be loud and cough.

The salt-water in his mouth tastes awful, but he pushes onwards following Gabor painfully and slowly another forty or so meters.

They are maybe two hundred meters from where they started out now, and as they round another large out-cropping of rock Castle notices the cliff dips in sharply behind it. Very sharply in fact, and it becomes clear quickly that there is a cave here that his father is swimming towards; a cave that even in the daylight would be hard to see, hidden as it is between the curving of the rocks, a cave that's very obviously only accessible from the sea.

Excitement causes a swell of adrenaline to flood the author's tired body, and Castle closes the gap between himself and Gabor until he's right on the CIA operatives shoulders as they swim into the cave. Absolute inky blackness swallows the pair of them and his father grabs hold of Castle again, guiding him unerringly until Castle feels the water getting shallow again and he ends up deposited on a beach at the rear of the cavern, washing up like a seal on the sand.

Once more Gabor finds him in the sheer black, tugs him to his feet and with a strong hand on Castle's now throbbing left arm he tugs the writer behind him up the incline of the beach, pulls him behind a large rock and then tugs him down to sit beside him. Only then does his father speak.

"We've got company," he growls quietly.

Castle's makes a puzzled face the other man cannot of course see.

"What makes you so sure of that?" he whispers.

"Back on the beach, when the wind changed I heard a motor cutting out – you must have heard it too?"

"I heard something that sounded like a motor yeah – but then nothing. What are we even doing here?"

Gabor sighs softly.

"Not taking any chances," he replies. "No-one is scheduled to visit, but I know what I heard, I caught voices on the breeze right after that motor died – someone is here."

The writer shivers, mostly from the cold of the water and the chill of the cave and his soaking clothes that are plastered so uncomfortably against his skin, but also from the menace, the implied threat in his father's quiet voice.

"For you," he asks with trepidation, "or for me?"

"Me," Gabor says with finality. "Has to be for me, only three others know you are here, and one of those is Dianthe."

Castle imagines his father is shaking his head thoughtfully.

"The ones that do know though, how trustworthy are they – really?" he questions.

"Rick, I trust them with _your _life – that should tell you everything."

It does. Castle does not question his fathers commitment to the protection of his existence.

"Okay," he says. "So if you're right and someone is here, then they've either come for you, or perhaps their arrival is unrelated. I mean this place is a CIA safe-house basically, isn't it possible that it's just being used by another operation?"

"No."

"How can you be sure?" Castle asks impatiently.

"Your presence here is secret, but mine is not. This place might belong to a corporation that's merely a CIA shell, but I'm the one pulling all the strings on it. No other operation that wasn't being directly controlled by me would ever have access – trust me Richard – we have uninvited and most likely dangerous company."

Castle's eyes are adjusting the to darkness of the cave but he still can barely make out his hand in front of his face.

"So what do we do?" he asks.

His father's voice is grim when he replies, grim and deadly.

"We need to retrieve your novel," he says, "and then I need to get you out of here."

"I'm assuming you have a plan to do that?" Castle says, barely able to discern what he thinks is a nod from Gabor.

"Get back inside the villa without being seen, get the manuscript, and take my transportation out of here." The spy replies.

The writer laughs softly.

"You make it sound easy,"he says. "And what then?"

"It's time for the end-game to begin Richard. I'm still going to have to hide you for a little while longer my son, but I'm going to do it back in New York."

Castle's heart leaps.


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter Twenty Two: **Is hell still beneath me? Or am I already there?

* * *

Back in the bullpen Kate begins to put together the murder board for Detective Ethan Slaughter, and as she carefully draws a timeline and begins to fill in the sparse details they have at present her brain is whirling with images of Castle during that case.

It was a tough period for their partnership – the toughest period if she's being completely honest with herself. Even when they started out, when Castle was this insanely annoying smart-ass playboy she truly didn't want on her heels – even then they were more in sync than the awful weeks both preceding and post his jaunt with Slaughter.

Kate closes her eyes and remembers just how excruciatingly confused she was that entire time. How she didn't dare to look very closely at what might have caused the disconnect between them because she already knew, knew way down deep in her soul that somehow it was her fault and that she was breaking him.

It had been so much easier to focus on his willful, down right 'jackass' behavior than it had been to focus on what she'd done, and what she _hadn't_ done as being the root causes of it all.

After they'd resolved things she hadn't wanted to look back, but there have been times when she's done it anyway and been forced to conclude that she came within hours of losing him forever as he worked one last case with her before he'd determined to walk away.

Breaking that zombie case had thankfully, finally turned things around. Castle had called her indirectly on her lies and she'd indirectly explained herself and they'd mutually agreed to keep trying. Things had gotten better from there.

But now there's this.

Now it comes back, now it _all_ comes back.

Now somehow she's paying for her mistakes - being haunted by them.

Why didn't she tell him 'No', why didn't she tell him 'Hell yes this bothers me'. Why didn't she stop it immediately? Why didn't she stop it when he came back to the precinct with a bloody nose? Why didn't she just stop him, and love him and never permit him anywhere near a cop as dangerous and as reckless as Ethan Slaughter?

"You have to stop doing this you know." Esposito's voice is soft and directly in her right ear, and Beckett's eyes fly open. She turns towards him startled, a guilty expression all over her lovely face.

She steps back and chews on her lip out of habit, avoids Espo's eyes and tries to put him off by pretending she doesn't understand his meaning.

"Stop what? Putting the murder board together?" she says defensively.

The Latino detective shoots her a glare.

"And don't play dumb with me," he says sharply.

Kate sighs and her shoulders sag slightly.

"I'm sorry," she mumbles, "I'm trying not too, but I can't seem to help it."

Esposito steps closer and then apparently thinks better of it, choosing to take a step back and seat himself on the edge of Beckett's desk instead. He crosses his arms and looks at her pointedly, clearly debating with himself how best to approach this.

"We need you on your 'A' game," he says firmly in the end. "Castle needs you focused and not hamstrung, you both screwed up your partnership there for a while Beckett – there is no point in assigning responsibility here."

Kate smiles sadly.

"You don't know the whole story Javi. You don't know the things I put him through," she says.

"I know enough to know that Castle isn't blameless and that if he were here he'd tell you the same thing," he retorts.

He would too. She knows that, she does, she's just overwhelmed by the realization that she's finally unraveling the mystery behind Castle's disappearance and making the unwelcome discovery that she's a highly likely candidate for the blame.

"Seriously," Javi hisses at her, "stop it. We need your direction on this, whatever it takes Kate you have to resist getting mired in regrets right now. Stop thinking about the damage done and focus on this-"

He hands her the framed photo of Castle that she keeps on her desk and her fingers take it – trembling - as she studies her missing lover's handsome, smiling face.

"I want my friend back," he says. "Ryan and I . . . well we need him too."

Kate looks up.

"He's our brother," Javi explains.

Yeah she knows this, Castle would say that as well.

She sighs. "You're right," she says firmly. "I hear you, I hear what you're saying and I'll do better – I will. Just kick me in the shins if you see me getting lost again, okay?"

She expects Esposito to smile and nod, help her move on past the wall of emotions that's swapping her progress but he just looks at her quietly for a long moment and then shakes his head.

"I don't think you _are_ hearing me," he replies.

"Javi . . . "

"No, Beckett. Really stop and think hard about this. Think about what you have in your hands and what you're doing right now."

Frowning, Kate stares at him confused and then she looks down at the black sharpie in her right hand before she transfers her gaze to the photo of Castle in her left – and she gets it, she understands.

The book.

"Heat Lost," she whispers, and then her gaze shoots to Esposito's.

Her partner nods.

"Look Ryan is like mini-Castle, I'll give you that," he says gently. "And God knows he will find it in the end, he'll locate whatever information is in the ending of that book if there's more in it to find, and knowing Castle there must be. But _you_ are Richard Castle's partner Kate. He wrote that book so that _you _would be able to solve this."

Kate opens her mouth to interrupt but Javier stalls her protest with his hand.

"Look I get that you think you're too close to it. And I know you're second guessing yourself over everything and you think that maybe stepping back a little bit might be better here – but I'm telling you Beckett, you _can _do this. And in the interests of time and making the best possible use of our resources, you should be letting Ryan and I put together the murder board. Let Ryan and I run Niska's financials and pull the case file from that 'Westie' kid's murder. Finish 'Heat Lost' Beckett – finish it yourself and tell me who to go and slap the cuffs on for Detective Slaughter's murder."

Kate is silent for long moment and Esposito watches her expectantly, his dark eyes never wavering from his study of her face.

"You believe the name of the murderer is revealed in the book?" she asks at length.

Javier nods. "I do," he says, "and I honestly think all we actually need to do to solve this case is figure out the 'whom' from the clues. The rest of this stuff – the ballistics and the autopsy etc - that's just the evidence Kate, it's the tangible back-up we need to make an actual arrest stick. But the answer itself – I just believe that in the book Castle has already told you who you're looking for."

Beckett smiles.

She let's Esposito's clear conviction wash through her and settle slowly into her marrow, lets his belief become a part of her. It silences the nagging doubts and the self-recriminations and she realizes with a start that though the words themselves are coming from Javier, it feels more like Rick is speaking to her.

Because in the end, it's his faith and his belief in her and her abilities that's enabled him to use a cryptic book as a means of communicating with them all in the first place – without the book they'd be nowhere and have nothing.

But they do still need evidence.

"Okay," she says.

Esposito smiles back. "Okay?"

"Yes," she replies, "Okay I get it. Okay you're right. Okay I'm listening. Call Ryan and find out where he is with Niska's financials and then pull him off of the manuscript to pull that 'Glitch' kids murder file instead. Oh, and while you're at it get him to check that the kid's father is still in jail. I can't imagine he beat that murder rap but the Westies have both money and connections so maybe he managed to weasel out of it somehow."

"On it. Anything else?"

Kate nods. "Finish setting up the timeline of Slaughter's murder and check back - see if Lanie has heard anything more from Ballistics yet."

"Will do," Esposito replies. Before he turns to go and hunt down Ryan he pushes Kate down into the seat behind her desk and tugs her copy of the 'Heat Lost' manuscript in front of her.

"Read," he says softly and with affection. "Just read Kate."

Her fingers dance over the papers and Beckett flips to her last bookmarked place, and settling back into her chair she does as she's bid.

This time around though she permits herself the luxury of getting lost inside Castle's narrative until her desk fades away, and the sounds of the bullpen around her fade away, and the totality of her existence becomes his words on the page before her and his latest adventure for Nikki is all that fills her mind.

The original four homicides that began the book have gone stone cold for Nikki and her team. Dead end after dead end as every person with known ties to each victim proves to be innocent when they successfully alibi out.

'Roach' manage to find a single phone connection however, as a burner phone purchased by Melanie Cavanaugh two days before her murder has calls logged to another burner phone purchased the same day by the fourth victim - Tracey McGrath.

Beyond that single piece of proof that one victim from each of the two double homicides did know each other (even though they would appear not too), beyond that, Nikki's got nothing to go on and half the department out with the stomach flu.

It's under these less than ideal circumstances that Nikki and 'Roach' then also get stuck investigating Detective Nathan Butcher's unfortunate demise because no-one else wants to touch it, coerced by Captain Irons himself into putting their other active investigation 'on hold'.

Beckett finds herself silently commiserating with her alter-ego as if it were one of her own cases, but knowing the key to Slaughter's murder must lie within the investigation into Butcher's killing, she also finds herself wishing Nikki and 'Roach' would forgo the pointless bitching and just get _on_ with it.

The gallows humor of it all does however serve to make Kate smile through the paragraphs, and it's comforting in this weird way for her to know that at least within the pages of Castle's novel the death of a highly disliked police officer still demands the kind of thorough investigating that should be automatic. The kind poor Ethan Slaughter's death has never received until this time – written off as it was in a way that truly turns Kate's stomach now.

Everything she's doing might be in the service of bringing Castle home, but Kate suddenly knows he's also asking her to right another wrong that's been committed here against one of their own.

Castle wants justice for Slaughter too – and though she already loves him more than life itself Kate falls even further for him as this realization makes itself known.


	23. Chapter 23

**A/N: I had planned on posting on Saturday but then life as it does got away with me - c'est la vie.**

* * *

**Chapter Twenty Three: **Yeah this is crazy, yeah it's crazy but it's true.

* * *

One month ago . . .

* * *

"New York?" Castle whispers, certain he heard correctly the first time but still in his heart needing to hear it again.

Next to him he's sure his father nods in the blackness.

"Yes Richard," Gabor confirms with amusement coloring the inflection in his voice, "New York. I think it's time we took this party home - don't you?"

The writer has to take a moment in the dark. His heart is hammering and he doesn't think it's from the exertion of the sparring or from fighting against the surges of the ocean during their swim. It's from knowing he's going home – knowing he's going to be close to Kate again – seeing a light finally shining at the end of the tunnel that's been his existence in this forced captivity.

His eyes well and he fights the tidal wave of emotion back – there is still so much that has to happen, still such a lot of obstacles that have to be overcome – he can't allow this to get out ahead of him, he needs his focus in the immediate, firmly in the here and now.

"So what's the plan?" he asks, forcing himself to the task at hand.

His father sighs thoughtfully in response and Castle waits, knows the wheels are turning furiously in the operatives brain.

"We have to get out of these wet clothes," Gabor replies at length.

Castle snorts.

"Yeah that would be great but we're in a sea cave and unfortunately I didn't think to bring a change of clothes with me," he says sarcastically.

The beam of a flashlight suddenly illuminates the darkness and Castle watches as his father pushes to his feet beside him.

"Funny," Gabor retorts, "but if you'll just follow me Rick – I think I've got you covered," he says, and Castle scrambles to his feet to follow, as Gabor heads deeper towards the back of the cave – flashlight in his hand.

As the writer's eyes adjust to the new lighting level he notices a tunnel at the back of the cave that leads both downwards and if Castle's got his orientation right – also heads back in-land.

Grinning like an idiot and wondering when his life is going to stop reading like a John Le Carre novel, Castle follows Gabor closely down the tunnel as it winds through the cliff, he studies the rocky walls and notices instantly the moment they change from a natural texture to something that's quite clearly been machined by man.

"Where does this lead?" he whispers loudly to the man in front of him.

Gabor stops and looks back at Castle over his shoulder. "It connects to the communications cave that you've been using to view all the 'watchdog' footage of Kate," he replies.

Frowning, Castle pictures the 'batcave' in his mind. It's a room he's used daily since the morning Gabor first showed it to him, and apart from the tunnel that leads into the villa and emerges behind the large picture/door in the wall close to his bedroom, Castle cannot remember any other exit from the space at all.

"Really?" he asks surprised.

Gabor nods, grinning. "It's very well hidden I'll grant you, but I can assure you this alternate exit from the communications room is there. How did you imagine I've been coming and going without you ever seeing me either arrive or depart?" he asks amused.

_Oh. So that's how he's been doing it!_

"So is that the only alternative way out or in?"

The CIA operative nods slowly.

"Into the villa, yes; the tunnel that connects to the communications room is the only outside method of accessing the inside of the house without walking in the front door. But further down here-" he points down the passageway in front of him, "This tunnel connects into several other tunnels that access several other different points on the island."

The agent watches his son absorb the information delightedly, and he inwardly smirks. His boy can be so wonderfully childlike at times, providing Gabor with these tantalizing glimpses of little 'Ricky Rodgers' that are just amazing for him to see. And yet his son has proven himself to be all man at the same time, a dedicated father and a loyal partner, a crack shot and a quick study – he's discovered his son has honestly grown up to become everything Gabor could ever have wished him to be.

He takes no credit, he truly doesn't – but it thrills him so much nevertheless. He loves his child - he always has, but its an unexpected bonus how much he likes him as well.

Castle shivers from the cold next to him and the motion yanks the operative back into the present and the dangerous task he knows is still ahead of them. He sternly reprimands himself for allowing the luxury of daydreaming, he has to protect his son and get him out of here – nothing, absolutely nothing can be allowed to interfere with that.

"Come on," he says, tugging on Castle's dripping t-shirt. "We need to get warm and dry, and then we can arm ourselves and formulate a plan."

A tight grin flashes across the novelist's face and he nods his agreement.

"Lead on," he replies.

Gabor continues down the tunnel for another fifty meters, at which point the tunnel opens out and becomes a cavern of reasonable proportions. The spy disappears to Castle's right for a moment, the flashlight beam erratically hitting the floor and then the walls, but then there is a soft click followed by a humming noise and warm light suddenly illuminates his surroundings. Castle looks about eagerly, notices the light is coming from electric subway lighting that has been installed high up on the cavern walls and as he looks back down the tunnel behind him it's also lit now with a warm glow.

The light isn't overly bright but it feels harsh against his eyeballs after the blackness before, and the writer blinks furiously for moment before he notices that his father has apparently 'disappeared'.

Castle looks about him worried, finally giving into the fear, "Gabor? Where are you?" he calls as quietly as he can while still hoping to be heard.

He waits for a minute that stretches into two and then he calls out again, louder this time, and he's rewarded when his father re-appears from another tunnel that Castle hadn't noticed, almost hidden behind an outcropping of rock on the caverns far side.

The spy has an armload of dark clothing with him so Castle swallows the lump of anxiety still residing in his windpipe and paints a neutral expression on his face instead.

"Here," Gabor says, handing Castle dry black cargo pants and a form-fitting long sleeved black knit top with reinforced patches on the shoulders and elbows. He places an identical outfit for himself on the stone floor beside the writer, before heading back across the cavern to the semi-hidden tunnel again.

"Where are you going?" Castle asks quickly, before the spy can once more disappear.

"Shoes." Gabor throws back over his shoulder. "Change Richard – and do it quickly. We need to move swiftly and precisely now – with any luck we can get in and get your novel unseen, but we also need to be prepared to meet force with force," he says before he leaves.

Nerves bubble tightly in the author's stomach. The exact same kind of restless, giddy thrill he gets when following Kate into a take-down situation. Thankfully over the years of their partnership he's learned to handle the adrenaline of it properly, and with his recent training he notices he feels even more in control.

He does as he's bid, grateful to cast aside his sodden clothing and pull warm dry things on over his goose-fleshed skin. Everything fits him perfectly and for second Castle thinks that's weird, but then he realizes these are Gabor's clothes he's wearing and then it makes sense to him that it would all fit.

The CIA operative returns a few minutes later, pleased when he finds Castle ready and waiting, he hands the writer a black pair of flexible but sturdy climbing shoes, the kind the author has seen Gabor wearing when free-climbing the cliffs here.

He shoots Gabor a look that's sort of terrified and Gabor laughs quietly at the horror in his son's expression.

"They're very quiet and have great traction," he says, "don't look so scared, I'm not actually about to make you climb rock faces."

"Thank God," Castle retorts.

"Don't thank me just yet," his father replies more seriously. "Here you go Rick."

He hands Castle a 9mm handgun with a silencer attached and a spare clip, and the air around the pair of them changes instantly. Nervous vivid blue eyes meet ice-cold stony ones and Castle swallows furiously, but doesn't take his eyes off Gabor's intense face. He can read the other man so easily now it seems, and the ice-cold look chills him only in that he knows the operative is committed to doing whatever it takes here. Anyone who gets in Gabor's way tonight will be eliminated – anyone. And the writer also understands that anyone who threatens _him_ will suffer the same fate.

"You know your way around this," Gabor says indicating the gun, "I know you do. But stay behind me Richard, at all times – do I make myself clear?"

Castle nods.

"Follow my lead, get down and stay down if and when I tell you to, and you do precisely and unquestioningly what I say. And _no_ heroics – promise me Richard." He grabs Castle's right forearm and squeezes tightly.

The author nods again.

"I swear," he replies.

Gabor changes quickly out of his wet things and into his dry all-black outfit before he douses the cavern lights again and switches back to the flashlight. The two men remain stationary for a couple of minutes to allow their eyes to re-adjust to the darkness, and then with a tight smile at his son illuminated only by the sharp LED's bluish glow he says simply, "Let's go."

They take the tunnel hidden behind the out-cropping and once more make their way in-land in the direction of the villa. Gabor's steps are sure and even although Castle, following behind and unfamiliar with the territory stumbles often on the uneven rocky ground. Soon enough however they reach the base of a spiraling metal staircase.

"From now on we need to be as silent as possible," Gabor says quietly. "Whoever was on that motorboat has had more than enough time to land and infiltrate the villa. The motor wasn't loud enough to indicate a large craft; I'd estimate there can be no more than five in the team that's been sent in – but that's an estimate Richard and it will be better for us if we are never seen."

"I get that." Castle replies. "But what exactly is your plan here?"

"_You_ have to hold the communications room. When we get up there, you'll stay put Rick and I'll retrieve the novel from your room. I'll be back as quickly as possible and we'll get out of here. If anyone comes down the tunnel from the villa but me – shoot them. Can you do that?" Gabor asks gravely.

The writer nods, his voice when he speaks is firm and unwavering - certain. "I can hold the room," he says. "Now how are we getting off this island?"

"Boat. Then a seaplane that's anchored five miles off shore," his father responds.

Castle's eyes widen, but he forces both his excitement and any further questions down. "Okay," he says simply. "Then let's do this."

They scale the staircase together almost silently. The ridged rubber treading on the climbing shoes absorbing almost all the sound of their footfalls. Castle estimates there are more stairs here than the usual route up the stone staircase from the beach, but then this method of egress places them on the second floor of the villa instead of the ground floor so when the staircase reaches it's end it feels just right. A heavy silver steel door greets them, with a palm-reader set into the rock at its side and Gabor scans his left hand quickly before answering the unspoken question he can see practically bursting from Castle's eyes.

"Left hand so that your gun remains in play," he whispers, smiling in the dark when he hears the writer mumbling something that sounds suspiciously like 'so cool' as the door swings open to the side.

"You ready?" Gabor asks softly.

"On your six," Castle replies.

The tunnel on the far side of the steel door is both narrow and short, ending in what appears to be a dead-end, a rock wall.

Gabor listens intently, a finger across his lips telling Castle to remain absolutely silent. But after several minutes the spy seems to be content that no sounds from the communications room can be heard through the stone.

Reaching above his head the CIA agent pulls down on a rusty iron lever almost hidden against the craggy ceiling of the tunnel and there is a very small click followed by the barest sliver of light, and a with a small push a part of the wall just gives wide. Gabor's gun is up and in his hand as he moves slowly into the room, eyes scanning high and low with years of honed experience, searching for anything out of place and any danger.

Castle remains in the relative safety of the tunnel until he hears his father utter the word 'clear', then he moves through the rock 'door' and into the room, his gun also at the ready.

"Stay here," his father instructs him. "And leave the door to the passageway open, stay in the doorway Richard, keep your gun up and across the room, keep it trained on the villa entrance-way – am I clear?"

Castle nods. "Yeah I got it. Hold the room and stay in the tunnel opening," he replies.

Gabor steps closer, his hypnotic blue eyes steely.

"Just to reiterate," he says, "if anyone but me comes into this room you mustn't hesitate Richard. Shoot to kill – your life depends on it."

"I understand."

"Anyone Richard, anyone but me – your word on that, I don't know who might have been sent here, I don't know which of my colleagues is out for me. There is a chance – however small that it could be someone you know."

_Oh. Yeah he does know some people at the CIA. Oh wow._

Castle looks his father dead in the eyes, doesn't flinch. "Anyone but you," he says vehemently.

Gabor flashes a quick smile of approval and heads swiftly down the tunnel that leads into the villa, and Castle backs up into the rocky doorway behind him, raises the 9mm in his hand and taking a deep breath he trains it in the direction of the other entrance-way.

He waits tensely for long minutes, his breathing accelerated but his hands steady and sure, and then he hears it – gunshots and the sound of shouting, and then footfalls coming swiftly towards his location – into the 'batcave' down the tunnel from the villa.

Castle takes a deep quick breath and gauntlets his hands, focuses down the barrel of the handgun, his finger ready on the trigger.


	24. Chapter 24

**A/N: So nervous and excited for this chapter, I think I almost delayed it on purpose while I tweaked it and tweaked it because it's such a big deal for the story . . .**

* * *

**Chapter Twenty Four: **And you watch me fight my own insanity.

* * *

Chapter twenty two of 'Heat Lost' is the one that ultimately provides the break in the case for both Kate and also for her fictional alter-ego, and although it doesn't hit her until much later on, 'twenty-two' is of course an 'odd sock' all of its own – its the number of novels Richard Castle had written before he met her.

* * *

It's late in the day when the break comes; Kate has reached the final four chapters of 'Heat Lost' and she's beginning to wonder where the crucial information is going be. Nikki and Roach are stymied on another investigation. Several days into investigating Detective Nathan Butcher's murder and to Nikki's everlasting frustration, they are firmly up against yet another brick wall.

Nikki's unsolved body count is now sitting at five, and on the more personal side of the novel - Jameson Rook is still very much missing while Nikki is daily growing more frantic about his safety. Kate can completely relate, but as the 'reader' of the book she's aware of what Nikki isn't - that Rook is actually safe and that he's doing okay. He's just cut off and he's incommunicado, but he's doing his damnedest to get back both to civilization and to her. In her heart Kate can't help but hope that the story has been written this way because Castle's telling her this is also exactly what he's trying to do here.

With nothing but dead leads and empty spaces in her suspect column, all Nikki's got to work with in her latest investigation is a cryptic piece of paper that Dr. Lauren Parry pulled out of one of Detective Butcher's shoes during his autopsy. Kate reads past this point at first. She doesn't see the message Castle's left for her in it, until two chapters later into the novel when Nikki finally uncovers the meaning behind the mystery piece of paper as it relates to her investigation. And then Kate kicks herself hard mentally, for not seeing already what this piece of information really is.

'_Under the Gun'._

It hits her so suddenly, like a blinding flash of inspiration. God she's an idiot.

After all she remembers that insane case so very vividly, and every single one of its painful repercussions.

And maybe, she thinks, that's exactly why it wasn't so obvious to her on her first read through. Anything that might lead her to thoughts of Mike Royce is still somewhat untouchable by her conscious mind; deemed simply too painful. So Kate doesn't often allow herself to go there. However, that case certainly involved a cryptic piece of paper of its very own, one that also had a double meaning and was found hidden inside a murder victim's shoe.

Castle knows how hard that case was on her. He wouldn't use it so blatantly here unless he wanted to jar her, and if he's jarring her psyche on purpose then he's clearly trying to get her to pay attention to something.

So Kate goes back two chapters, and then she reads it slowly and more carefully all over again.

For Nikki Heat the cryptic piece of paper from Detective Butcher's shoe is interesting firstly because it was hidden, and second because it has numbers scrawled all over it. The numbers are showcased clearly into groups of three numbers at a time, in defined sets of two, there are twelve unique sets of them in total.

It's a distinct pattern, but nothing about the grouping is immediately obvious - so it's a mystery. Still, dead-ended as they are with all of their current murder cases, Detectives Heat, Raley and Ochoa have nothing else left to go on, so unravelling the meaning behind these strange strings of numbers becomes the soul focus of their combined attention.

It takes Nikki and 'Roach' a lot of time on the internet and a couple of days worth of digging in order for them to figure out the pattern to them. But eventually the three detectives uncover the key, and turn their twelve sets of six numbers into four separate strings of eighteen.

This leads their investigation to four numbered Swiss bank accounts, with one belonging to each of their four initial victims - although the accounts are under different, perhaps 'real' names. Names that Nikki only manages to extract from the overseas bank, because the accounts themselves are accessed purely via 'fingerprint' and her four original homicide victims are each a perfect match to one of the numbered accounts.

The discovery is staggering. Now – clearly, all of their cases are linked and they're no longer dealing with two entirely separate murder investigations. Both the original four and now Detective Butcher's seemingly random 'wrong-place-wrong-time' murder have clearly been orchestrated by the same individual(s). Because how else can the detectives explain Butcher being found dead in possession of secret financial information on each of the other four victims?

Kate can't help it and she can't stop it either, she smiles somewhat sadly as she reads this part of the book again. In her mind she just sees him so clearly, and she sees him smiling too. Sees him looking at her all twinkling eyes, his infectious grin so insufferably smug and he's so heart-breakingly handsome as the words 'Castlesque twist' trip lazily off of his tongue, that want blind-sides her - hard.

She holds onto the thought of his smile, even as the image of it in her minds-eye inevitably fades, and the wave of need is replaced by one of desolate sorrow that sweeps over her sudden and fiercely, leaving her aching and despondent in its wake.

The cop closes her eyes for a moment and breathes shallowly through the nagging pain. She swallows it back, swallows it down, knowing innately that she's sitting on the edge of a discovery here and that Rick's guiding her to it, nudging her gently, leading her back.

Kate opens her eyes with renewed purpose, she's close to answers – she is, and so once more she begins to read.

The newly uncovered bank accounts revert 'to the United States government' upon their owners demise, a condition so strange that it leads Nikki first to the State Department and then finally to the 'Agency'. Her homicide victims are all agents, spies in point of fact, their numbered Swiss accounts in all reality the property of the CIA.

_The CIA._

No wonder Nikki's been getting nowhere with her investigation, the lives of the people whose deaths she's been investigating aren't really their lives at all. They're fronts, carefully crafted identities that aren't real with substance and background provided purely to conceal. And now that Nikki has uncovered this the 'Agency' and its full might steps in. The NYPD are instructed firmly to back off – that the deaths of their agents are already being investigated and that they've only permitted Nikki to continue with her investigation up to this point, because they were confident she wouldn't actually break past any of the cover identities.

Now that she has - they demand to know how she did it? Nikki however, still needs to know who killed her fellow cop, she can't let it get buried – so while she agrees to back completely away from CIA's cases, she refuses to reveal to them what lead her there. For now Butcher's mysterious piece of paper remains her secret – for as long as she can keep it - while she and Roach struggle furiously to uncover where he got it from, knowing that it's only a matter of time before they'll ultimately lose control of his case also.

And Butcher's death might not mean much to the CIA – but it's important to the NYPD. It's important to Nikki.

It kinda hits Beckett then, the beauty of what it is that he's done here, how brilliantly clever a writer he's proving to be, and she puts 'Heat Lost' on her desk with shaking hands, grabs for her cell phone and calls Esposito immediately.

Excitement and adrenaline are flowing freely through her – the heady amazing thrill of discovery.

She sees clearly where the message lies now – where Castle has hidden it inside the story. It's the sets of numbers that will tell Kate what she needs to know, she even knows exactly how – and she gets it all simply from the asshole at the CIA who Nikki's been forced into dealing with in. The clue hidden simply inside the character's name. Hidden in plain sight for just Kate to see.

Because this name is an asshole who Kate Beckett once had to deal with, and one who very memorably only ever called her by the name 'Nikki Heat'.

Only Castle.

_Scott Dunne._

The name seems so large on the page.

Kate wants to laugh, she can hear Castle's voice from way back then – the comment he once made, as if he was beside her.

_'Busted you smug jack-hole'._

She's trembling, certain but . . .

No. She's certain, she is - it's there because it _has_ to be.

Kate can't sit still and she gets up, paces around her desk, wills Esposito to find Ryan quickly and get back here, she could of course begin to find it – but she wants them here, wants to do this with them, its only fitting for them to do this together as a team.

Just then the elevator pings its arrival and to her immense relief as the doors slide open both her partners practically spring into view, her face splits into a smile at the twin looks of anticipation and worry on each of their good-looking faces.

Ryan makes it to her desk first.

"You found it?" he asks.

Beckett nods, her eyes going from Ryan to Esposito, who meets her gaze with a knowing smile.

"I told you," he says softly, "said you could do it. What have you got for us Beckett?"

The brunette detective takes a calming breath to contain her excitement, she paces in front of the murder board that's still barely filled in for Ethan Slaughter, takes a long look at the barrenness of it and it has the desired subduing effect. Kate spins back around, hands twisting together nervously.

"Okay. The second year that Castle was shadowing me we caught a case that the FBI honed in on," she begins.

Esposito nods, remembering. "Yeah I remember that. Wasn't that the case with the nut bar who blew up your old apartment?"

"Yes, exactly." Kate answers. "The serial killer who dedicated his murders to me – or rather, to 'Nikki Heat', he inscribed the bullets he put in his victims with letters. Three victims at first, with the letters spelling out a message to me – 'Nikki will burn.'"

Ryan looks intrigued. "So there's something similar in the book?" he asks.

Beckett shakes her head. "No, not exactly. But the killer's name is there, the one we uncovered finally after plowing through the fake identities."

Her partners stare at her expectantly.

Kate rolls her eyes. "Scott Dunne," she tells them.

Ryan bites his lip. "So Castle's named a character in 'Heat Lost' after this killer we caught – this 'Scott Dunne'?" he questions.

Esposito looks thoughtful. "Clearly Beckett you think that means something."

"It does," she tells them, "in fact it's the key – but there's more before we get to it."

"Alright – go on," he says encouragingly.

"So, in the novel Nikki and 'Roach' have found a link between their five homicides. The murder of Nathan Butcher uncovers a cryptic piece of paper that ties them all together. Now the book has one very specific meaning for this piece of paper – but Castle using the name 'Scott Dunne' is a message to us that there's another one."

Kate's partners both smile, Ryan look almost giddy.

"You know what it is," he says.

Beckett nods. "Yeah, I believe so," she says breathlessly. "I think the key also lies back in the Scott Dunne case, because as well as the bullets, he sent me a second message, a string of numbers on a bloody bandage. Castle was the one who figured out what the numbers meant – they were a reference key for words within the pages of 'Heat Wave'. In this manuscript, the piece of paper that Nathan Butcher had hidden also contains strings of numbers – and I've seen this pattern before – strings of three in sets of two. Regardless of the novel's use for them, I'd bet my badge we can use these numbers the same way we did back then. They're a reference key for this book guys, twelve words if I'm right about it. Twelve words that are a message direct from Castle that will help us to solve this."

Esposito is the first of her partners to speak.

"Well okay, lets do this."

Her partners grab their copies of the manuscript, and together the three of them work their way through it – finding each word in turn. It takes but two words for them all to agree that Beckett's cracked this – 'Be careful'.

They stare triumphantly at each other when they've found all of them, Ryan grins at her like an idiot and Esposito nudges her shoulder in victory.

"You did it," he whispers to her.

"We did it." Kate answers back.

Their discovery sits on the white-board in black sharpie, beneath Slaughter's incomplete murder time-line.

'Be Careful Cesar Valez Murdered Slaughter And He's Watching You Always Castle'

Kate steps close to the white board and stares at the name of her cop-killer, the name of the man who somehow caused Castle's sudden disappearance.

"Alakazam jackass," she says quietly.


	25. Chapter 25

**A/N: Thank you all so very, very much for your continued enthusiasm for this story - especially the phenomenal response to the last chapter, it was awesome and overwhelming (I loved it).  
**

* * *

**Chapter Twenty Five:** Tight rope walking ain't that hard.

* * *

One month ago . . .

* * *

_Castle takes a deep quick breath and gauntlets his hands, focuses down the barrel of the handgun, his finger ready on the trigger._

The footsteps grow louder, pounding on the stone floor of the tunnel leading from the villa into the communications room and Castle grips the gun in his hands just a little tighter. He notices idly that although he's nervous and his heart-rate is accelerated he's centered and focused – sure that he won't just gawk if this is indeed a threat approaching – his purpose is crystal clear.

It's Gabor who enters the room running though, blood visible at his left temple and judging by the sounding of further footfalls behind him he has an assailant on his tail. The operative's gun is securely in his right hand but he's clutching Castle's manuscript to his chest with his left, awkwardly trying to maintain his grip on the large stack of hand-typed loose pages that are merely bundled together with a large elastic band. Maintaining his hold on it is hampering him – but the novel is their sole purpose for coming back here.

Two identical sets of blue eyes meet and lock. Gabor shifts his pupils to the left for a fraction of a second, but it's enough of a communication for Castle to know exactly what it is that Gabor needs him to do. The writer blinks and Gabor ducks, rolling at once quickly to his left side and giving Castle a clean shot now at a man in a black balaclava who's entering the communications room chasing him.

The author takes it - two shots in quick succession, yet muffled as they are by the silencer the sound is sickeningly almost nothing.

The man on Gabor's heels takes the bullets in the center of his right shoulder – Castle knows he should probably have aimed for center mass but surely this is enough force to drop him. Gabor springs back to his feet and blocks Castle's view, the author hears another couple of soft pops before Gabor is pushing him back into the tunnel behind them.

"Go quickly," his father hisses, sounding furious with him. "Now Richard – get moving."

More footsteps can be heard heading their way and with one final quick glance at the now unmoving masked man lying on floor beyond his father, Castle turns and steps back into the tunnel. He hears four more muffled pop sounds at his rear and then suddenly Gabor's pushing hard against him, urging him away from the 'rock' door and further into the passageway so that he can seal the entrance behind them. The two men navigate the short tunnel to the more secure steel door in a frantic stumbling jumble of limbs, once they are safely through it, Gabor uses the hand scanner to seal it – plunging them back into darkness - before he fires up his flashlight again and smashes the scanner plate to pieces with the butt of his gun. It should hold whoever follows them for some time hopefully, and once he's completed this task Gabor turns blazing eyes on his son.

"You could have gotten yourself killed with that stunt," he growls murderously.

Castle frowns at the venom in the older man's voice and his eyes darken, his own face turning angry. He steps closer to the operative.

"I took him down," he replies in a harsh tone. "I didn't even hesitate – I just didn't see the need at that moment to actually kill him."

Gabor snorts.

"That wasn't your call to make; you were supposed to do precisely what I told you."

Castle shakes his head. "The _only_ part of your instruction I ignored was shooting to kill."

Father and son stand toe to toe in the rocky confined space both breathing quickly. Richard Gabor seems to silently assess both his son's words and his defiant posture, and Castle stares mutely back, his jaw tight and his blue eyes unyielding.

The spy sighs softly.

"I'm trying very hard to protect you," he says sternly and at length. "And you aren't making that task any easier Richard if I can't trust you to follow all my instructions to the letter."

The operative's eyes are hard as flint as he stares down his only son, but Castle won't be cowed by him.

"I did follow them." Castle retorts. "Maybe not strictly to the letter, but I did what you asked of me," he says quietly. "I did what was strictly necessary."

The writer doesn't plan on apologizing for his choice, but he does allow something like it to creep quietly into his gaze, and he softens his stance hoping this is will be enough, Gabor shakes his head at him. Castle thinks his father might even be smiling – albeit faintly – it's hard to tell in the relative darkness.

"Are you stubborn like this with Kate too?" Gabor asks.

In response the writer flashes a wry grin and nods just once very quickly.

"I-"

Any further conversation is halted at this point by someone or something crashing loudly into the far side of the steel door behind them.

Gabor reaches into a pocket in his cargo pants and pulls a large waterproof pouch from it, he carefully inserts the novel into it and seals it up tightly.

"We need to go," Gabor says quietly, re-focusing. "Here take the flashlight and take this-" he says, also handing the pouch containing the novel over. "Take the stairs Richard, all the way back down to the bottom – go – now."

The writer eyes the destroyed access panel warily, jumping slightly as another crashing sound echoes loudly in the dark rocky tunnel, as whoever is on the other side of the door smashes into it again.

"How sturdy is that thing?" He asks with concern, beginning his descent of the spiraling staircase with Gabor right on his rear.

"Sturdy enough would my guess, there's no control panel on the other side so it can't be re-wired. Unless the tunnels ahead of us have been compromised we'll have an adequate amount of time to get clear before anyone has a prayer of getting through it."

Something about the tone of the CIA agent's voice doesn't sound completely convincing but then his over active imagination could be conjuring that, either way Castle begins to take the stairs much faster – two at a time, suddenly very grateful for the comforting presence of a gun in his hand, his book tucked awkwardly under his arm.

The two men reach the bottom without incident and Castle is about to head back the way they came in but Gabor instantly steps ahead of him.

"Stay behind me," he instructs, grabbing the flashlight again.

"I have a gun," Castle protests.

Gabor shoots him a pleading look over his shoulder, "Just hold onto that book and stay behind me – please."

Castle is tempted to roll his eyes, but thinks better of it.

"Fine – I don't know where we're going anyway," he mutters a little truculently.

The journey back through the tunnel to the cavern is faster this time, Gabor hurries them through it and back into the tunnel heading towards the sea. The two men are almost back at the sea cave when the CIA operative suddenly ducks into another very narrow passageway branching off to the left of them.

Castle swallows back his sound of surprise – he never even noticed this tiny tunnel on their way in.

Passing through it proves extremely challenging. Both Castle and Gabor are large men and the tunnel is only wide enough in several spots for them to suck in everything and squeeze themselves through. It's dark and the rocky floor beneath their feet is damp and very slippery. Several times Castle's feet almost slide out from under him and only the presence of the extreme grips of his climbing shoes saves him from a nasty spill.

It's also uncomfortably claustrophobic and the author is thrilled when he notices he can hear the sound of the ocean dead ahead of them.

Gabor stops suddenly and Castle bumps into him.

"Listen," his father instructs in a whisper. "Tell me if you can hear anything?"

Motionless the writer strains his ears, but beyond the sound of waves against rock he can't hear a blessed thing.

"The ocean," he whispers back, "that's it."

Gabor nods his head in agreement.

"Yeah that's all I can hear too. Luck is apparently on our side Rick; we might just get away with this."

Castle inclines his eyebrow.

"Might?" he hisses.

Gabor studiously ignores him.

"Time to get wet again I'm afraid," he says, before he places the flashlight between his teeth and pockets his firearm in a pouch on his cargo pants. The operative then turns his back on Castle and leaps into the darkness - vanishing, the sound of a large splash follows.

Stunned for a second the author stares into the dark just blinking, but then as his eyes adjust to the absence of the glow from the flashlight, he realizes he's almost right on the edge of a small cliff here. He steps up and looks over the edge, barely able to discern Gabor treading water about fifteen feet below him.

Castle doesn't wait to be told to follow; he pockets his own gun as he'd watched Gabor do, holds tightly to the pouch with his novel and he jumps in.

He emerges spluttering slightly next to his father and the operative just flashes him a quick grin before he begins to stroke away.

The writer shivers violently, shocked motionless by the cold water for a moment, and then as best he can with only one hand free, he swims.

The inward motion of the waves is constantly pushing back against them; but thankfully their destination isn't all that far. Castle notices the atmosphere around them is growing lighter and as they round a curve in the cave walls he's suddenly aware that he can see an entrance about forty feet away now, and beyond it the open sea. A sleek black speedboat is moored just inside the mouth of the cavern and Gabor is clearly heading there.

His father reaches the boat about ten strokes ahead of him, hauling himself with practiced ease over the side. He quickly unleashes the craft before he leans down to help assist his son in, trying to mask a grimace as the younger man's dead weight pulls awkwardly on his still recovering shoulder.

Once Castle is on-board, Gabor turns the key sitting waiting in the speedboat's ignition, and the twin high performance outboard engines kick in. The sound is deafening, like a jet aircraft in the confined space they occupy; it breaks through the stillness of the night echoing outward, and Castle shivers not just from his soaked attire but from a sudden sharp rush of adrenaline. The sound gives them away. It calls immediate attention to their position – so Castle reaches into the pocket on his pants for the 9mm, and once more wraps his fingers lovingly around it.

Gabor shakes his head at him, and then nods at locker in the center of the craft, so the writer climbs over the intervening seat and pries it open it just as Gabor nudges the boat forwards and towards the ocean. They are out in the open now and it's immediately so much easier to see. A sliver of moonlight peaking through the dark clouds overhead flashes off the barrel of a rifle lying in the bottom of the locker, so Castle pushes the handgun back into the pocket of his pants and picks up the rifle as instructed instead. He drops the book safely into the locker for now and re-closes the lid.

Releasing the safety on the long gun, Castle crouches down instinctively in the seat, his eyes scanning the open expanse of water for anything following - he's relieved a little as they put the island behind them finally, and Gabor heads them unerringly out to sea.

The speedboat is sleek and swift, fifteen minutes and they've almost relaxed, almost reached the seaplane that is their destination when they suddenly hear it behind them – the whine of a boat engine being punished brutally.

Castle looks over at Gabor with fear clearly evident in his eyes, and his father's face is grim.

So much for a clean getaway, Castle thinks - they're being hunted it seems.


	26. Chapter 26

**A/N: I did do my research as best I could – but any errors in the forensics in this chapter remain mine. My advice – go with it ;-)**

* * *

**Chapter Twenty Six: **Stand up, and walk the way you talk like you could die for it.

* * *

_"Alakazam jackass," she says quietly._

She doesn't know exactly how long she stares at his name, mind reeling and purpose blindingly clear, but suddenly Ryan is using the dry eraser on Castle's words and the protest is out her mouth before she can even think on it.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she hisses at him violently.

Ryan's cobalt gaze is calm and steady, he's already finished making sure all trace of Castle's message is gone.

"Exactly what Castle just told us to do," he says quietly for only Kate and Javi's ears. "Being careful. His message says Valez is always watching – so maybe he's got corrupt cops on his payroll as well."

Kate's about to correct Ryan, tell him that the 'always' in the message is a personal thing from her lover to her, when it dawns on her that Castle could indeed be using the phrase two ways here. One word, but double duty. She stares back at the blank spot on the white-board where moments earlier the decoded words were written out, and forces herself to think hard on it for a moment or two more. In the end, she has to conclude that Ryan does have a valid point and that 'always' here can easily be ascribed to separate things.

"Sorry," she says with a soft smile in Kevin's direction, "you're right of course. We have to conclude that's a possibility and proceed accordingly."

Esposito blows out a frustrated sigh.

"So what now?" he asks, looking at Beckett for direction.

Kate chews on her lip. "Lanie did say she was going to have the ballistics run again, right?" she asks him.

Javier smiles, "Yeah, that's what she told us. Do you want me follow up?"

The brunette nods, "We know Dr. Niska had them run with Slaughter's initial autopsy," she says. "And I trust ballistics would have alerted someone if the slugs came back with a match to anything at anytime – and yet my gut tells me to look again. We can't let the case we build for Slaughter's murder end up being all circumstantial – we need some real evidence to make it as solid as we can."

Esposito grins at her. "Let's hope for something new from ballistics then. I'll check with them now."

Kate turns to Ryan, who's staring at Slaughter's bare bones timeline again deep in thought.

"Ryan?"

"Hmmmm," he hums.

"What is it?" she asks.

"Why did he want to kill him?" Ryan replies.

Kate frowns, "I'm sorry, what?"

Ryan turns away from the murder board to look at her.

"Slaughter," he says, nodding his head at the murdered detective's picture. "Why did Valez want to run the risk of a lethal injection by killing a police detective? What was in it for him?"

Beckett shrugs; sitting on the edge of her desk she studies the murder board too.

Narrowing her eyes she says, "You know, up until we decoded the message in Castle's novel I figured this was going to come back to the case Castle and Slaughter worked together."

"Well it does, doesn't it? I mean it has to since it involves the pair of them and that case was the entirety of their association." Ryan says quietly.

"Yes," she agrees, "but don't you get the feeling that it isn't the whole story? I mean, you said it yourself Ryan – he's risking a lethal injection for the homicide of a cop here. Those are huge stakes even for a drug-running gangster. Now we know Valez has reason to want some pay-back against Slaughter – Slaughter tried to frame him in order to take him off the streets, and we can be reasonably sure Valez knows this. But 'murder', there has to be more too this."

Ryan nods.

"Yeah I agree," he replies. "And what's his beef with Castle?" he adds.

"Exactly - Castle's the only reason Valez even remained free."

Her partner frowns.

"And we have a problem," he says. "How do we go about taking Valez' life apart properly looking for whatever trigger sent him after Slaughter, without tipping anyone off into what we're actually looking for?"

Kate gets up from the edge of her desk and steps close to the murder board again; when she turns to face Ryan suddenly a minute later she's smiling again.

"Well for starters we could fake the board," she tells him.

Ryan eyes widen in confusion. "I'm not following you."

Kate's grin is calculating, "We make this a dummy board," she reiterates, thumbing the white board behind her. "If we're truly heeding Castle's warning here, then we have to assume that by now Valez has learned that we've exhumed Slaughter's remains. He knows it's not being written off as accidental as he hoped and instead it's considered suspicious enough that it warrants being investigated. If that's the case, then a dummied up murder board will make it appear as if we're getting nowhere. We'll add only the details everyone knows – time of death, location, cause of death. Then we'll add a list of all Slaughter's open cases at the time; put some gang-bangers names up in the suspect column, add some of the names from the shootout that day to the potential witness list – that kind of thing," she says excitedly.

Detective Ryan grins.

"Okay, I see where you're going," he says, "what then?"

"Then the three of us covertly start our real investigation. We need to find out from Espo if there is anyone in the gang unit he trusts enough that we can hit them up for some information safely. Because you're absolutely right Kev, we need to know what happened to Valez _after_ that case to make him suddenly want Slaughter dead so badly?"

"Motive."

Kate nods.

"As always," she muses, "motive is the key to everything."

* * *

Esposito returns to find Ryan and Beckett filling the Slaughter murder board in at what he can only describe as a 'break-neck' pace. The details are all accurate, but they don't look right somehow and the Latino detective stares at the board they've complied in his pretty short absence more than a little bit confused.

Clearing his throat to attract his partner's attention he arches both brows at them and crosses his arms expectantly.

"What," he says, nodding in the direction of the board, "is that?"

Ryan looks swiftly around the bullpen for eavesdropping ears, before he mouths the word 'dummy' at Espo, before smiling suddenly and physically blocking the view of the murder board from a uniform who's wandering by and appears to be perusing it.

Face darkening like a thunder cloud Javier steps towards his sidekick, 'What did you just call me?" he growls.

The uniform leaves and Ryan's shoulders relax, "Not you," he stage whispers before he tilts his head. "It."

Esposito looks back at the board and within seconds his face suddenly goes very neutral.

"Got it."

"Anyway," Beckett interrupts. "Do Ballistics have anything?"

Her partner grins nodding, before he walks past her into the conference room and waits for the others to join him, Ryan follows Kate into the room and secures the door.

"Slugs pulled out of Slaughter still aren't a match to anything," he begins and Kate's face falls instantly, "however," he hastens to add, "Lanie found residue in the wound tracks and so she had some additional tests run on the shell casings that were recovered along with his body at the scene. There are trace amounts of cocaine on them."

"And Valez is a drug dealer," she says, "but Javi that's really thin. You can test bank notes and pick up trace amounts of cocaine. I bet we'd find those same traces on half the shell casings we deal with."

Esposito looks smug, "Not these traces you wouldn't."

"What do you mean?"

"This cocaine is laced with a compound called 'Levamisole'," he says.

Beckett shakes her head frustrated. "Seventy percent of all seized cocaine is found to be laced with Levamisole," she tells him. "I don't see how any of this helps us."

"That's because you didn't let me finish," Esposito admonishes her.

The brunette detective shrugs to indicate he should continue then.

"As I was saying – the cocaine found on the shell casings is laced with the anti-parasitic "Levamisole' which, as you already pointed out is a very common adulterant often found in cocaine – however not at the levels Lanie's found here."

"What's weird about it?" asks Ryan.

"How high it is," Javi replies. "Lanie says she's seen a few cases of cocaine overdose over the last six months or so where the postmortem blood concentrations of Levamisole were at the kind of dangerous levels she's found here."

"Oh my God," Kate interrupts. "That's it Javi – it's like a fingerprint."

Esposito nods, "Exactly what Lanie said. Whoever is cutting their cocaine with this stuff and doing it at this ratio - they've made themselves distinctive. If we can tie Valez to this stuff conclusively, prove that he's the dealer behind it . . . "Esposito trails off.

"Then we can tie him to the bullets that killed Ethan Slaughter – albeit somewhat circumstantially." Kate finishes for him. "It's a start Javi, especially if we can come up with a solid motive for him to have done this."

"You hear that?" Ryan chimes in.

"Hear what?" He gets back in stereo.

"Why I believe it's the sound of hammering," he says smiling, "of the first nail in the Valez coffin."


	27. Chapter 27

**A/N: Long awaited I know, but this was a tough chapter and I wanted it to be exciting and I have no clue if I managed it, so do a girl a favor and if I did – review!**

* * *

**Chapter Twenty Seven: **Won't back down, surrounded.

* * *

One month ago . . .

* * *

_So much for a clean getaway, Castle thinks - they're being hunted it seems._

"What do we do?" Castle asks - his voice a little panicked as his fingers tighten around the rifle in his hands unconsciously.

His father looks thoughtful, eyes darting around them as if he's coming up with and discarding plans rapidly, somewhere behind them the sound of the motor boat pursuing them grows louder. Finally Gabor focuses his attention on Castle and his bright eyes are absolutely resolute in the darkness, almost glittering with purpose.

"We're getting out of here – alive," he answers. "I promise you that Richard. I _will_ get you out."

Castle draws a shaky breath and lets the determination in the seasoned spy's voice settle him somewhat before he swallows purposefully, forcing his anxiety low in his belly. He's so much stronger now, he reminds himself. So much better prepared for any and all eventualities than at any time before in his life – whatever they have to do now, he has faith that he can handle it.

"I believe you," he reassures the older man. "But we need a plan."

Gabor manages a grim smile as he pushes the sleek speedboat to the absolute limits of its power, "Well it just so happens that I have one," he answers.

He lays it out quickly for his son as their boat bounces closer and closer to the plane that is their salvation, and the writer's eyes grow rounder and more incredulous by the moment. When the CIA operative is finished he eyes Castle with a weird mixture of apprehension and pride, "You can do this," he says his voice a hundred percent sure.

Castle's eyes lose their focus for a moment as he looks inwardly for fear – and when he finds nothing other than adrenaline jitters he grins broadly and nods, "I know," he answers. "I've got this."

The sliver of moonlight that's helpfully illuminated the night since they left the island behind, seems to be in collusion with them. It casts one final moment of brilliance ahead, glinting off the seaplane that's anchored firmly to a large buoy some 200 meters away, before it disappears behind thick and ferocious looking clouds, plunging the ocean all around them into a blanket of thick inky blackness that mercifully conceals.

A spotlight comes on in the distance at their rear and Gabor tries to assess how far back their adversaries are, mentally making calculations about how much time Castle needs to buy for him. At the rate the speedboat behind them is coming, the operative estimates they'll be within range of the plane inside ten minutes, he can get the pre-flight down to that, but that leaves them absolutely no window to make their escape. He needs another of couple minutes at the very least and their plan is risky – it exposes his son in a way that's actually making the CIA vet anxious in the extreme. On one side of the equation it's their only shot and he's convinced Castle can do it – but on the other, on a purely instinctual parental level it's scaring him to death.

He cannot lose his son, not after all these months of successfully managing to keep him safe and risking his career – his very life in order to accomplish it. He's got to get the novelist out of this situation permanently now and give him back his life.

"You ready?" he calls to Castle, over the straining engine whine of their transportation.

The writer inclines his head, excitement and determination shining fiercely in eyes, "As I'll ever be," he shouts back. "Just tell me how close I need to get you?"

Gabor steps aside from the speedboats controls and Castle lowers the rifle to the floor of the boat and steps in to replace him. He takes them over with a sure hand, hugely thankful under the circumstances that at least it's not the first time he's ever driven one. It's been a long while though, and he leans close to the controls in the darkness, scanning them quickly to memorize them.

His father hand grasps his upper arm and squeezes and Castle looks back up at him.

"Bring me as close to the buoy as you think you safely can, drop her throttle down quickly when we're twenty meters or so away, she'll coast in – I'll jump and then you floor it – push her right back up to full and you head away," he instructs.

The writer nods. "Got it."

Gabor shoots a quick glance at the light of the boat behind them, no doubt in his mind the damn thing is still gaining. He turns back to Castle; the lines around his mouth are grim.

"Lead them away Richard," he says – hating the necessity of it. "Get clear of the buoy by at least five hundred meters and then hit the spotlights on this baby - draw their attention to you. Make your course a large loop of a circle, but head back towards the plane only at the last moment – and only when you hear the props actually fire up – you hear? We'll only get one shot at this."

"I understand." Castle says gravely, "You should take the book," he adds.

Gabor looks like he might say something, but then he just nods. "Where did you stash it?" he asks instead.

"I dropped it in the locker that the rifle was in, still safe in its waterproof pouch."

The CIA agent moves to the center of the craft and tugs the closed storage locker open – he retrieves the precious cargo with steady hands and moves to the far edge of the boat. Looking down at his son's work Gabor steals a moment and lets the future play out before him – sees Castle and Kate reunited, married, building a family and he smiles because he's knows somehow he's going to be a part of it, then he blinks the future away and inhabits the present, focusing as Castle kills the engines and the speedboat lowers in the water, bringing him within easy reach of the plane.

He shoots the writer a quick grin, "Good luck," he calls.

Castle grins back before he winks. "Yeah you too old man," he jokes, and then Gabor leaps.

The ocean is cold and black and the ambient light is almost non existent, mercifully the buoy and the plane are barely ten meters away for which the operative swiftly gives thanks. Gripping the novel tightly Gabor moves quickly through the water as behind him Castle floors the speedboat and it roars away.

Clambering up on to the seaplanes floats the CIA operative tugs on the door and when it swings open he tosses the book towards the back of the plane where the hull of the aircraft is thicker and it'll be safer - in the event of gunfire more protected. Holding on tight to a strut he balances quickly and walks back to unleash the plane from the buoy, time is of the essence but in the pitch black he's conscious of moving carefully.

The three-strand polyester mooring rope has stiffened only slightly from salt deposits but the rope is wet and in the dark its especially hard to untie it, minutes that feel like hours are wasted as Gabor curses a stream of vehement Chinese in frustration before the last knot gives and the plane is finally able to float free.

Gabor clambers frantically back towards to the front of aircraft, pops the door once more and climbs quickly over the co-pilots seat, dropping himself with relief, dripping and shivering in the pilots' spot so he can begin to get this baby ready for the air. With quick expert fingers and years of practice he flicks the switches and taps the dials, checks the plane has almost a full compliment of fuel and then as the electronics in the cockpit come singing to life Gabor checks the ocean around him nervously – hoping with no little amount of trepidation that things are going according to the plan for Rick.

* * *

He can't get over how flaming dark it is. Castle pilots the speedboat away from the plane at the maximum acceleration he can coax out of the twin engines, but it's just a touch scary that he's basically heading completely into nothingness out here – he can't see beyond about five feet ahead of him. Checking over his shoulder he scans the dark ocean for the pursuing boats spotlight and he can't be sure, but he thinks that the other boat has already altered their course to match his. Although that's what they wanted eventually, the fact that it's already occurred makes Castle stop and think. Clearly whoever is after them has something on-board that they're using to track him somehow. Radar or sonar or night-vision, hell Castle doesn't know, but they clearly have to be using something.

The writer blows out a panicked breath and shakes the anxiety away; the adrenaline is making him antsy that's all. He just has to turn her slightly now, his course is supposed to be a subtle curving arc – he's got to focus on that – on his role in their escape here.

He turns the wheel to the right gently, the boat is going so fast a gentle course change is all she should handle, he doesn't want to risk getting tossed over the side this far from Gabor and the seaplane – they'll never make it if that happens.

Castle looks at his watch and tries to estimate how many minutes he's been speeding away. His prior confidence seems to be deserting him and he's afraid now, out here on his own that he'll get too far away and be cut off from Gabor by their adversaries. He's afraid he won't hear the seaplane props coming to life over the roar of the boats own engines – then he's afraid he will but that he won't be able to get back to it – he's just . . . afraid. He wants to go home, he wants Kate – God he just wants Kate; he wants her so fucking badly.

Unsurprisingly, it's her imagine - the thought of her that calms and focuses him.

It's been four months since he last held Kate, four months since he made love to her – since he tasted her on his tongue. Four months without her scent, her voice, her laughter – the love in her beautiful eyes. It's been four months since he's seen his daughter.

Castle turns the speedboat more fully back towards the seaplane that he can no longer see but unerringly knows is there – it's been four months of his life that he's given up to this shitty situation – so no bloody way is anything stopping his homecoming now.

Ears' straining the writer is relieved when he suddenly catches the sound it feels like he's been waiting an age for on the air; definitely not a boat whine – that's the propeller of an aircraft he's sure. He hits the spotlights on the speedboat at last, lighting up the ocean around him even though he's certain his attackers already know exactly where he is. It's more important now he thinks for Gabor to see him, so that he can head the plane this way slightly as it taxis', he sights the light of the other boat getting steadily closer – it's going to be tight no doubt about it. God he prays they get away with this.

* * *

The seaplane engines spring to life with a reassuring fire, each propeller gaining momentum evenly, and Gabor breathes tiny sigh of relief. In the blackness the operative had been watching the pursuing speedboat as it got closer before it changed its course towards Rick as they'd hoped, following the speedboat away from him. Now that the plane is taxiing he waits for his son to hear it, scans the ocean with his piercing blue eyes just waiting on the acknowledgment. The plane's radar shows him the swiftly moving blip that is the boat is son is piloting, and Gabor can see the second dot that's rapidly closing in.

A concert of moves plays across his mind, two boats and a plane and angles that all collide. It's too tight still; the operative can see that – so he can't wait here for Rick he's got to close the gap himself a little, move the plane towards him.

The dark ocean is relatively calm but thankfully conditions are not glassy, glassy would be bad, no air sliding under the floats increasing the drag and perhaps preventing him from getting the plane airborne, so Gabor engages the throttle, turns on the plane's own set of spotlights and noses the bird towards Castle.

* * *

When the lights of the distant plane come on Castle smiles, their attackers have a decision to make – which vehicle do they try to cut off? Of course they could just try to get right in between them . . .

Shit!

Castle eases up on the arc the speedboat is making, turns it right towards the plane – and floors it.

* * *

The radar blip that is his son is aimed directly for him now, no curve coming back around, just full on down the line of the plane's taxi – what the hell Rick – Gabor thinks, until he guesses the new plan.

Fuck!

Gabor increases the speed of the taxi.

* * *

Castle can see the light of the other boat growing bright now, hear it like it's already upon him, suddenly a bullet whistles past his temple and he falls back startled, scrambles to right himself and steady the speedboat.

Bastards must have a night-scope on that rifle.

Castle keeps low as much as he can and still steer the speeding boat towards the aircraft, he glances at the dark water as it whizzes by – it's going to be like hitting concrete at this speed, and that's gonna hurt like a son of bitch dammit.

Better that than a bullet Rick, he tells himself.

Then he grimaces – better than bullet – but still.

* * *

Gabor closes the gap as quickly as he can; it's like a three-way game of chicken! The operative can't contain the rueful smile or the shake of his head as he beelines for the approaching novelist – his son is fucking crazy.

* * *

The seaplane is clearly advancing as quickly as possible now without his father pushing it into the air, he's obviously picked up on what Castle is attempting to do and the writer grins evilly.

He counts himself down as two more rifle shots rip over the gathering storm of noise from the three converging vehicles engines. Pain lances through his right bicep as a third bullet grazes him, but Castle keeps counting, he hits ten, then turns his vessel away from the seaplane and towards the oncoming speedboat, locks the throttles in the full position and dives over the side away from them.

The now unmanned speedboat plows towards the other boat and as the writer hits a wall of water that winds and then engulfs him, he hopes Gabor really does know to change his angle now and come to save him.

* * *

Clever boy is heading the other boat off. Gabor turns the seaplane to his right and lowers the speed of his taxi, heads it towards the prior position of Castle's speedboat before it suddenly changed course – prays his son is in the water.

* * *

Castle emerges from beneath the waves gasping and in acute pain. This must be what it feels like to jump from a moving car, his left side is numb, he can't even move his arm and his right arm burns from the gunshot as he struggles to keep himself afloat. The lights of the seaplane find him just as he's disappearing beneath the waterline.

"Rick-"his father's voice yells into the night. "Swim. You have to swim."

The ocean is like a blanket over his head, the cold water leaching all the pain in his body away – he could just fade, it would be peaceful.

_Castle don't you dare._

He can hear her then like she's next to him.

_Come on Castle – you got stronger and did all that training exactly for this. Come home to me now. Come home Castle. Swim._

"Richard-" his father's voice replaces Kate's as Castle emerges from beneath the waves again, the writer gasps, pulling oxygen greedily into his lungs he lets the lifesaving gas infuse him, give him back his strength, and then he does as he's bid - he swims.

The seaplane is only fifty feet away and it's closing, but so too is the other speedboat. Forcing their pursuers to avoid a head-on collision with Castle's abandoned craft gained them something, but unless Castle can get on-board the seaplane within seconds now their slight advantage will mean nothing.

The plane picks up speed and Castle forces himself to swim faster, the gap closes completely and Castle makes a frantic surge upwards out the water just as his father leans out the aircraft and reaches down.

Their hands lock, and with a strength borne entirely of desperation Gabor hauls his son onto the float of the seaplane. Then he pushes the aircraft's throttle to full, sending it careening hastily over the dark waves.

It's going to be so close. The seaplane is heading away from their attackers but the boat has the speed advantage for now, it's a question of getting enough momentum for rotation before they can be either boarded or shot in the fuel tank and taken out of the air.

* * *

It takes Castle a second or two to catch his breath as he clings to the strut attaching the pilots' side float to the plane. Water sprays up into his face reviving him and the float bumps beneath him as it collides with and skips over the waves. A big bump jostles him, almost tipping him back over the side and it finally hits him – this thing is about to take off and he's . . . outside of it.

The writer clings tighter, pushes himself to his feet on the float. The pilots' door is open slightly and his father leans forward in the pilots' chair as Castle manages to wrench it wide. He steps up on the door-frame and wedges himself past the operative until he's fully inside.

A 'thunk' sounds beneath them and Castle looks at Gabor – his eyes wide.

"Bullet hitting a float," the operative says matter-of-factly.

Castle swallows, settles himself in the copilots seat. "How long before you can get us in the air?"

There's a pause and a flash outside, a bullet pinging off a metal strut that supports the wing.

"How long-"Castle gasps again.

His father winks at him, "Over the hump and rotating now."

Castle isn't strapped in but the force of gravity keeps him firmly in his seat, the g-force pulling low in his abdomen as the plane pitches skyward with her nose-up, before Gabor banks her immediately to the side, levels and then banks her sharply once again.

Castle looks out the window on his side that's facing down at this attitude towards the inky sea; he sees the attacking boat flash by beneath them – and then only ocean. The plane climbs higher and higher and Castle smiles over at Gabor, all white teeth and pride.

"We did it," he says, unable to keep the disbelief out of his voice.

Gabor punches him lightly in his non-bleeding arm.

"You did it," he retorts. "You did it Rick."


	28. Chapter 28

**A/N: Long gap between updates, longer chapter as a reward. And I tried to thank everyone personally last chapter but I had some computer issues and I think I missed a few reviewers - if I did - I apologize, I was blown away by the response to the last one, and humbled by it - thank you all. Side note, I understand everyone wants them to reunite - but I'm writing a novel length story here and that kinda happens towards (but not right at) the end guys, getting to it is the whole point of the story's journey - still we are one chapter closer - hope you are all still loving the ride?**

**Chapter Twenty Eight: **A second chance is all I'm meaning.

* * *

_Why I believe it's the sound of hammering," he says smiling, "of the first nail in the Valez coffin."_

* * *

Kate smiles at Javier over Ryan's comment and the handsome Latino can't help but notice that some real colour has finally crept back into her cheeks; tiny hints of sparkle have reignited within her arresting eyes. The young detective knows full well that the final unravelling of Castle's message is wholly responsible for this, and he smiles inwardly at how vital and alive the love between them still is – even after all this time apart.

Esposito's about to open his mouth with a suggestion about what avenue of investigation they should perhaps pursue next when he notices the elevator door opening and his jaw drops slightly as a figure he recognizes exits. He taps Beckett on the shoulder and nods at the Twelfth's latest visitor his eyebrow climbing.

Beckett looks over her shoulder and then back at Esposito, her expression confused as she shakes her head..

"I don't recognize him," she says. "Should I?"

Javi shrugs. "Maybe not," he replies. "But I think our next avenue of inquiry just came to us."

* * *

Detective Marc Gibson doesn't look anything like a cop, and for good reason. A long time undercover in the gang task force, he keeps his head down and almost never enters a police precinct unless it's under the guise of him having been arrested. In fact he's taking a risk walking into homicide today – but Gibson is determined, he's got to step up now and face the consequences come what may, it's the only right thing left for him to do.

He approaches Beckett, Esposito and Ryan with calm and certain demeanour, pulling the backwards facing ball cap off his head as he does so.

"Hey Javi." Gibson offers as a greeting.

Esposito nods cautiously, "Detective Gibson – it's been a long time."

Ryan looks between Gibson and his partner curiously. "You two know each other?" he asks.

Javier inclines his head.

"We worked at the 54th together," he says. "Gibson was on the Organized Crime squad with me before I transferred here to Homicide and he went undercover to the Gang Unit."

Ryan's eyebrow rises.

"Ah – that explains the get-up."

Gibson grins ruefully. "It ain't a suit and a shield for sure," he says, clearly eyeing Ryan's as usual immaculate appearance. "But in my role these are the only clothes you can wear."

An awkward silence lasts a beat too long.

"Wait," Beckett exclaims. "Wait – I do recognize you," she says suddenly. "You were here that day; you were laughing with them, because Slaughter had played some kind of prank on Castle."

Detective Gibson eyes the faked murder board behind her before his dark eyes meet hers, something shimmering in their ebony depths that looks to Kate a lot like remorse – he nods.

"Yeah," he says. "That was me. Slaughter is – was . . . "he trails off for a moment as if he's trying to accurately find a word. "I guess you could say I was the closest thing to a friend on the force that Ethan had," he says in the end.

He holds Beckett's perplexed gaze before he continues, "That's why I've come by actually. It's all over the street that Slaughter's remains have been exhumed and his death is being re-investigated as a 'targeted' homicide."

Beckett bites her lip thoughtfully, they knew it would get out – it's the whole reason for the dummied up board – but 'all over the street', especially in the gang-run areas of town where Gibson hangs out? Where Valez is- _Damn, _she thinks, and suddenly it feels like she has almost no time left on a clock that's ticking too loudly.

"What of it," she snaps defensively.

The gang unit cop reaches out his hand and tentatively squeezes her elbow, releasing her again almost immediately.

"I'm glad," he says softly. "I should have been pushing for it from the beginning when the fifty-fourth buried it."

Kate's eyes widen.

"_Buried it?_**"**

"Ethan was unpopular and unrepentant and on a whole slew of levels he was a crappy cop. His methods were verging on the criminal most days – but what you need to understand Detective Beckett – is that he genuinely hated the bad guys. He was an asshole – but in his own way he had honor. He wanted the drug dealers and the murderers off the street as badly as the rest of us. He just didn't care how he did it."

Kate frowns. "You said they buried it."

Gibson looks around them as if checking the bullpen for eavesdroppers. The others unconsciously huddle closer.

"I think they did," Gibson remarks quietly.

"Who are 'they'? And why?" Espo tries to clarify.

Gibson sighs. "I don't mean that someone specific deliberately set out to conceal that Ethan was murdered – I just mean that no-one could be bothered to look at his death the way any other cop shooting would have been looked at. And all because of the way Ethan was - who he was. I think even the medical examiner kinda thought Ethan had just finally caught what had been coming to him. That it was some kind of cosmic retribution that he died in a hail of gunfire by accident."

Beckett pins the undercover with a scrutinizing stare. "But you never believed that did you? You believed he'd been murdered and yet you also let it go." She states. "Why?"

Gibson looks at his feet, guilt written starkly on his face.

"Rumors," he replies. "I'd heard rumors of a motive, tales of a culprit and honestly-"he looks up and Kate can see it in his dark eyes. "I was scared," he admits, and she can tell that it's really hard for him to say that. "Especially when almost immediately your mystery writer friend disappeared – I mean when that was added in it made the rumblings really seem like they could be true."

"What rumors?" Javi growls "Stop talking in circles and spell it out bro."

Gibson's mouth firms into a thin line.

"Rumors that Slaughter was taken out because of what happened to a Mexican drug lord's family, rumors that your author pal was quietly murdered to punish you Beckett for the same reason."

Kate's mouth drops open – stunned.

"Punish me? Castle . . . Castle-"she wants to tell Gibson that Castle isn't dead, but she doesn't dare trust him with that knowledge. She swallows rapidly and stops her partners from betraying anything with no more than a mere flick of her eyes at them. She struggles a few seconds more for composure and then dives back into her questioning.

"What drug lord?" she demands.

"Valez," Gibson responds and Kate's stomach cartwheels as she realizes her missing motive for all that's happened the last five months might finally be coming.

"Cesar Valez?"

Gibson nods once, Beckett pushes on.

"Something happened to his family – what?"

Gibson lowers his voice to barely more than a whisper.

"His wife and his children were beaten, tortured and killed – to punish him for appearing weak, making the cartel look bad. He blames you Detective Beckett."

Kate shakes her head – she only met the gang leader once and just barely long enough to tell the dirt-bag to consider getting out of town. Then her eyes widen in horror.

"I – I threatened him," she says brokenly, remembering, her gaze darting from Gibson to Ryan before it lands on Esposito. "Javi-"

Gibson interrupts her. "Beckett – you intimidated him in front of witnesses and he let you do it without saying a word, and when Slaughter broadcast that to the whole city . . . "

"Slaughter did what?" The declaration fairly explodes out of Ryan, and three sets of eyes land on him, Ryan repeats his words more quietly. "Sorry – Slaughter did what?" he asks.

"He told everyone. Every drug dealing gang-banger in New York had heard the story within weeks of Slaughter leaking it. You have to understand," Gibson emphasizes, his eyes boring into Kate's. "You have to understand what that kind of public humiliation, what that perception of weakness does to a cartels reputation. To a cartel, 'fear' is everything. Valez was a leader, a big man who blinked and showed no balls when confronted with a beautiful female cop. He was a laughing stock Beckett – and as a result so was the entire Mexican Mafia. They took out his family to restore their own pride, prove to their rivals how tough and uncompromising they were. Valez had allies but it was basically a civil war for the Mexicans."

Tears shine in Kate's eyes and she blinks them back. Valez might be scum but his wife – his children . . .

"He won though – didn't he?" she forces herself to ask.

Marc Gibson nods. "It was a bloodbath but he retained control – in the end."

She takes a deep breath to steady herself. This is what she's been looking for after all, a solid motive for Valez to have gone after and killed Detective Slaughter. But she would never have dreamed it as twisted as this, of how she herself would so directly have tied Castle into it all. The man she loves was targeted to die as an act of revenge on her – oh God! Sick to her stomach she moves through it.

"So," she continues, hating the quiver in her voice. "Once he had control of his gang again – you believe as retribution for the murder of his family that Valez himself took Slaughter out."

Gibson nods.

"Yeah that's exactly what I think. Bastard waited until he was untouchable and then he struck. He took out Slaughter first, and then he was more careful about your writer. Beckett, the rumours say that when Valez has had enough of watching you suffer while you search in vain for your missing lover that then he'll simply take you out too."

Ryan almost chokes and Esposito's face brooks no messing with.

"Like hell-"they both say in unison.

Detective Gibson waves them off. "It's the word on the street," he explains. "And now that you're poking around and treating Ethan's death as the homicide it is – how much longer do you think Valez is going give her before he decides to strike her down?"

Esposito's face is darker than any storm cloud, he steps right into the undercover gang detective and pokes him hard in the chest.

"Why didn't you report all of this to someone months ago?" he growls demandingly. "You're a cop Gibson. A pathetic excuse for a cop, but a cop Goddamit. Some scumbag threatens one of us and the rest are supposed to come running – that's how it works asshole. And you sat on this, you sat on it you-"

"Javi-" Beckett steps between the two detectives with difficulty; she rests her hand gently against the wall of Espo's chest and pushes him to back off.

Spinning around as Javier eyes Gibson threateningly, she narrows her eyes at him.

"You said Valez waited until he was 'untouchable' to go after Slaughter?"

Gibson nods, he looks miserable.

"He did," he replies.

Beckett shakes her head. "What does that mean – exactly?"

Gibson swallows nervously.

"Valez is protected. Nothing sticks to the guy. Six months Slaughter's been dead and even before that any bust we attempted that would have interfered with his operation went south. Tips that were concrete, stings that were iron clad – it was like Valez always knew everything the gang task force was doing."

Kate looks thoughtful. "He has someone on the inside," she states.

Gibson shakes his head.

"This is bigger than the NYPD. Valez is trafficking amounts that should be impossible to move covertly. He's one step ahead of every search warrant, knows the identities of almost all the drug cops on the beat. He's even made me, but as long as we don't touch any of his people he lets us all be and doesn't pass his knowledge along to his rivals, not even for a price. He's got federal protection Beckett – it's the only thing that makes any sense – how he got it, what he's giving them in return I can't say. But Valez is operating on different level now than any of the other gangs in the city; he's gone from a liability and a joke, to probably the biggest drug kingpin in country in under a year."

Beckett remembers Castle's other warning then.

"You're right," she tells Gibson, before she turns to her partners. "It's the CIA," she says, looking pointedly at her desk and the pile of 'Heat Lost's' typed pages. She sees the comprehension dawn in both Ryan and Esposito's eyes immediately, sees them realize where the novel again ties in.

"CIA protection would explain a lot," Ryan admits. "If Valez was working for them somehow, the agency works closely with the DEA, they could easily be ignoring him in return for something."

Esposito looks over at Gibson slightly mollified. "This is why you've remained silent huh?"

Gibson nods. "Bigger forces are at work," he says. "Slaughter, well honestly I was afraid to push for it, I figured his death – but I can't stand by any longer and not warn you guys that the word is out about Beckett, and about your investigation. I don't want another dead member of the NYPD on my conscience; and I don't want Valez to get away with another murder." He turns to Kate. "You're a good cop Beckett – everyone knows it, and for what it's worth I liked Castle – when I met him. He seemed like a decent guy."

Beckett smiles, and after a moment she thoughtfully holds out her hand to the gang squad detective. Marc Gibson shakes her slight strong fingers gently.

"Thank you," Kate says, "for the warning."

Gibson nods at the three homicide cops, replaces his ball cap back on his head and eyes darting around the bullpen he makes himself scarce again.

Kate turns to her partners.

"Well he gave us our motive," Ryan states. "At least that's something."

Beckett agrees. "We know who, why and how. What we need now is enough proof to make this stick, although if Valez has the CIA in his pocket . . . "

"If he does," Esposito interrupts, "then even an airtight, cast-iron case is never going to go to court," he says bitterly. "The Feds, the Agency – they'll just take it over."

Beckett looks thoughtful.

"Maybe. But if he has to sell out so completely, disappear into WITSEC, it at least takes him off the streets."

Ryan looks at her pointedly. "It's you we're worried about Kate," he says softly. "How do we stop him from coming after you, or Castle – from finishing what he's started here? WITSEC still technically leaves Valez free."

Beckett shakes her head, her hazel eyes uncertain. "I don't have an answer for that," she says. "But clearly Castle is telling us to solve this murder, to get Valez arrested. Maybe he knows something else that we don't – I don't know what else to do guys – except what Rick is asking us to."

Ryan looks thoughtful, Esposito paces angrily, Kate stares at the faked board and wishes Castle were beside her to tell her what to do. She sits on the edge of her desk and let's her mind drift over everything they've learned and he comes to her. A memory surfaces, another long ago conversation from Melanie Cavanaugh's case . . .

"_You know what helps?"_

"_Yeah?"_

"_Sometimes when I'm trying to figure out how a character of mine does something I will walk the crime scene. This one time I was trying to figure out how to throw someone off the Empire State building and that movie 'Sleepless in Seattle' had just come out – so many lonely women approached me thinking I was their Tom Hanks, I got laid-"_

"_Castle!"_

"_The point is – you want to get inside a killer's head, go to where the killer was – and see what problems he had to face. Field trip?"_

She startles, doesn't know why exactly this particular memory has surfaced now but she looks down at the pages of his book and finds herself smiling anyhow.

"Guys," she calls, and her partner's stop their mutual brooding, focusing on her.

"I want to see the crime scene."

The boys look confused.

"What crime scene?" Ryan asks.

"Slaughter's crime scene. I want to see where he was killed six months ago, figure out where Valez was exactly when he shot him. Maybe something will pop, maybe it can lead us to the evidence we need," she says.

"Beckett it's been six months." Javi reiterates very gently.

Kate nods. "Exactly. And it's been five months since the day the man I love disappeared – it's a long shot Espo, I get that. But a long shot is all I got – so are you guys coming or what?"


	29. Chapter 29

**A/N: Urghhh this was the hardest chapter to write yet. Jeez. End of rant, but note the date code people (she hints with glee). Oh and Rida I promised you this would go up by the end of the day - and I just made it - at least here on the west coast anyway;)**

* * *

**Chapter Twenty Nine: **And you'll see your hero come running.

* * *

_Present day . . ._

Sweat pours off of his brow as his fists connect over and over again with the soft, impact-resistant vinyl of the punching bag. He imagines the faces of Cesar Valez and Ethan Slaughter as he works the excess of aggression through, it gives him something to focus on – something to channel it to.

It helps.

His arms aching – Castle pauses, his chest heaving and his heart thumping an elevated rhythm as his hands tingle inside the relatively compact mix martial arts gloves. He's still feeling angry and vengeful – still feeling confined and desperately in need of movement, but he's probably pushed this enough for one day.

His mind has been on overdrive since the day a mere week ago that he and Gabor finally made it back inside the US. After all the drama of their water-borne narrow escape by seaplane, he'd just assumed at the time that they'd land somewhere civilized fairly close by and finally return home. He feels foolish for ever assuming that now - clearly he wasn't thinking that plan through.

Granted their flight had been relatively short. An hour or so, and Gabor had put the plane back down in Turkish waters, taxiing her to a standstill in the pretty harbour at Kusadasi. Considering the international aspect of their arrival Castle had been surprised that no immigration officials had bothered with them – in fact no one had bothered with them at all and just as well. They'd simply lashed the plane to the dock alongside the yachts of European millionaires' and vanished into the night, taking nothing from the plane with them beyond his novel and Gabor's gun.

Things got interesting after that.

Gabor has an apartment in the resort town, and he had travel documents and cash, clothes, everything he would need in order to leave Turkey behind him – but he had nothing in the way of documentation for Castle. Amid the high stakes scramble of their getaway there had been no time to grab all he had prepared for him and given the nature of their predicament, and not knowing who in the CIA might be working against them, it wasn't like his father could simply walk Castle into the American Embassy in Ankara and obtain them.

Getting home safely therefore, meant returning to the states unseen and unflagged and completely beneath anyone's radar. It was imperative that Castle could travel unnoticed and that basically meant 'illegally'.

Much to the writer's worry and chagrin they'd been stuck in Turkey a few days shy of three weeks. The time it took until Gabor could obtain - through some contacts on the fringes of his profession, a counterfeit Canadian passport in a fake name that would allow him to get Castle out of the country.

And it was still (to Castle's mind anyway) a tortuously circuitous route home for them once they had obtained it. Turkey gave way to Italy via a charter air flight, and then from Italy they traveled onto France by rail. Another train took them from France up to Denmark, and then they journeyed by ferry until they reached Sweden. From Sweden they risked a scheduled flight to Toronto, and when they made it into Canada without incident, finally they were within reach of the states and able to simply drive home.

Castle's assumed 'Canadian' identity had been ruthlessly drilled into him over and again by his father the entire way, among repeated assurances from the CIA vet that muddling their trail behind them the way they had, made them safer all the time. The end result of Gabor's constant drilling was an interesting experience for the writer to say the least. Castle almost felt now that he was this Edmonton born and raised son of school teachers. He'd even had multiple dreams about it – an entire faked background that it felt now as if he'd almost lived. It was more than a little weird, and although he'd written about cover identities for Derrick Storm he'd never truly appreciated before this _just _how immersed you could get - if you let yourself, if it was necessary.

They'd crossed over into the US seven days ago in the middle of the day, lost in a sea of tourists' and bargain-seeking shoppers heading south. Gabor had cited endless statistics the night before about how and when it was the most concealing for them to do it – Castle hadn't cared – he'd just wanted to be back home, wanted to feel that extra connection to his true self, needed to ground his life once more in that reality. And once they were finally safely back on US soil the closer they'd gotten to New York - the more wired and alive Castle had felt himself become.

Seven days of being cooped up in a cramped and sparse excuse for an apartment in Brooklyn later, and the life feels like its being sucked right out of him once again. A single room with a kitchenette, a bed and the sparring bag, an ancient tube TV with only basic cable and a tiny bathroom – barely three hundred square feet of space.

It's just another prison.

To be _so close,_and yet continue to remain apart from her; to follow his father's orders implicitly and suppress his innate desire to misbehave. It's the pure agony of his Greek island months all over again - but honed down to the finest point imaginable. It's a hypodermic needle straight to heart, his soul, his brain and he's numbed out, yet in pain, angry and sad and frustrated and . . .

See this was why he was punching the bag.

For four of the seven days Gabor had abandoned him, save for calling in to touch base at some point within every day. The communication would be brief and it felt more like he was checking up, reassuring himself that Castle hadn't done something stupid. When he thinks about it, the author realizes it's made things more than a little tense between them again, and it's definitely set their progressing relationship back a bit.

Castle knows it was necessary. Gabor had to play a role for Valez, had to pretend everything was normal to the CIA while at the same time digging covertly and trying to discover who tracked them down in Europe and attacked them. Searching for a lead in a minefield of trained spooks all of whom he has to treat with the scepticism of wondering if they're really playing for the other side.

Objectively he understands the enormous pressure his father is under to continue to fool Valez, fake out and delay the directives given to him by the CIA – find the traitor – finish this.

He gets it.

But it all still sits awkwardly on his freshly-minted and much more capable shoulders.

Because Kate's so close. She's really just moments away. And yet his arms are still devoid of her.

And there are just no words that could ever convey how much he hates it.

At least things are now moving. This is what Castle tells himself a thousand times a day, but it has been two full days now since Gabor began what he termed 'the end game' – delivering Castle's manuscript covertly to Black Pawn and leaving it very visibly on Gina Cowell's desk. Two endlessly long days of knowing that Kate has the answers sitting in her hands now while living with the knowledge that those answers he's handed to her may dangerously expose her. Praying that his warning is strong enough and hoping it isn't true that Valez has eyes of his own inside the precinct to see. And that's a faint hope at best.

Fifty something hours of excruciating anxiety. Wondering what she's read? How far has she gotten?Did he even leave enough breadcrumbs in his trail? Will she locate all the clues he so carefully crafted for her and the boys alone to unravel? Or did he make it to confusing to ever make sense?

This is the heaviest weight he's carrying – did he make it too hard?

But then he stops himself mid panic, reminds himself sternly - this is Detective Kate Beckett he's dealing with here.

This is Javier Esposito and Kevin Ryan.

This is Victoria Gates.

They'll see, they'll read, and they'll find.

He trusts in that – he does.

Because they know him as well as he knows them, and because more importantly this is what they do.

And despite the time, and the distance, and the disconnection they've been forced into, in the end – they're still a team.

Castle breathes deep. His heart rate has rapidly returned to normal and the sting has gone out of his hands. He stretches his arms high and then swings them experimentally, pleased to discover that the previous aching in his muscles has vanished and they aren't complaining – he forces his smile wide and tells himself to be content to feel ready for anything.

Anything then promptly decides to find him as Gabor comes literally hurtling through the apartment door.

"We've got a problem," he says, the lines around his mouth grim and bleak looking as he approaches his son.

Castle scans his father's now familiar face looking for the details before he asks for them, but the eyes that mirror his give nothing but a faint trace of anger and concern away.

"What is it?"

Gabor takes a breath, "Kate's taking her partners with her to scout the location of Slaughter's murder crime scene."

"_The point is – you want to get inside a killer's head, go to where the killer was – and see what problems he had to face."_

She remembered.

The writer raises an eyebrow.

"How is that a problem?" he asks, finding himself swallowing heavily because now his father is looking decidedly grim. "She has to find evidence enough to make her case against Valez – this is great – this means she's figured out the coded message within the book."

The older man sighs. "That part is great I'll grant you," he says gravely. "But Valez knows, Rick. He knows she's on to him."

Castle pales, "How? How the hell did he find out and how much does he know?"

"Enough." Gabor replies. "But not that you're alive thankfully and that's – that's at least something. Still he knows that Kate's investigating Slaughter's death as a murder. He found out earlier today and that means there's a leak within the precinct Richard, someone who is on this assholes payroll. He's also aware that Kate was tipped off that he was behind it, and that's why she's gunning for him now."

Oh God, Castle thinks - he sees where this is going, understands the implication of what this means.

"He won't wait any longer will he?" he states, knowing its not a question. "Not even to see her suffer."

Gabor shakes his head. "No, he's going after her. He has to, he can't afford the risk."

The writer narrows his eyes, dread sinking heavily in his gut. All their plans have hinged on Kate's investigation going unnoticed by the drug lord until she had enough to arrest him. This changes everything.

Castle's voice is shaky when he speaks.

"Is there any indication from your sources-" he begins, before his voice cracks. The writer clears his throat and tries again. "I mean, do we know – when?"

His father nods and Castle is torn between relief and despair.

"Today." Gabor's reply is graven.

Wow, okay. Castle unstraps the protective gloves from his hands, bunching them into fists, he pulls the sweaty t-shirt he's sporting over his head and wipes the perspiration from his naked chest with it.

"Have you uncovered the CIA mole?" he asks suddenly.

The operative shakes his head. "No, not yet. I'm sorry."

His son nods thoughtfully.

"Have you gotten enough cartel info out of Gabor already to call your op a success and withdraw his federal protection?"

There's another shake of the spy's head.

"He's holding out on me – it was expected. There are several key players he's yet to give up."

Castle pins his father with a direct gaze.

"Have you informed the Agency officially that you suspect Kate's now in direct danger from Valez? And if you have what have they asked you to do?"

The other man takes a beat too long to answer him.

"I've advised them," he says.

"And?" Castle prompts.

"And nothing," Gabor says gently – the apology in his eyes. "My directive from the Agency is that she's on her own."

Castle shakes his head, eyes wide in disbelief.

"To them, Rick," Gabor hastens to add. "Not to me. The mission can be damned – like I'm not gonna have her back in this," he says adamantly.

The writer steps right into his father, as if he's daring the man.

"We," he utters darkly. "We have her back in this."

His father looks stony.

"You have to stay here. You have to let me handle this."

"I wasn't asking for your permission. I was just telling you how it is."

"Richard-"

"I'm going with you."

"Rick – please . . . "

"I'm going with you." Castle insists again. "The subject is closed."


	30. Chapter 30

**A/N: I love New York but I know Manhattan only a little, so if the geography is off just go with it – Castle is filmed in LA at the end of the day. I hope this is what you've all been waiting for, and if it is – tell me. Also, I know this took me an age to write – but on the upside this chapter is frakkin huge. And no this is not the last one - still a ways to go to wrap it all up nice and neatly.  
**

* * *

**Chapter Thirty: **And tonight, you won't need your wings to fly.

* * *

_Present day._

Kate steps out of her cruiser in the fading late afternoon sunlight. A cold wind blows across the back of her shoulders, ruffling her hair around her angelic face and it catches in her fingers as she moves to tuck it behind her ears. Summer is coming, she can feel it – but the end of the June day has suddenly turned a little chilly and the brunette detective shivers slightly, her autumn eyes dancing around her as she takes in what maybe the roughest area of the upper east side. Since her mother's murder she's never been able to feel anything but a growing dislike for this part of town and Slaughter getting gunned down here certainly isn't helping any.

"Where-"she begins, before Esposito anticipates her question, nodding his head to the right of her he indicates an alley on the eastern edge of Rucker Park.

"According to the incident reports, the area where it all happened is down over there," he says, leading the way. Kate and Ryan fall in behind and follow him.

The alley is unremarkable, but as the three partners begin to make their way down it – towards a slew of abandoned warehouses at the Harlem River end – a strange feeling makes its way slowly and almost purposefully down the line of Beckett's spine.

She tries to place the feeling, but can't decide in the moment what the hell the sensation is, or why it feels almost familiar to her. But the longer it persists the more she realizes - it feels like she's being watched, like she's being . . . stared at.

And it's creepy.

_Oh God._

Nervously her eyes begin to scan the windows set high into the brick walls on either side of them. Walls that seem to suddenly rise up further as they encroach on them and Kate mentally shakes herself – there's nothing and no-one there – she tells herself sternly. This place is just rundown and eerie, that's all. And besides, no-one knew they were coming.

But for a moment it almost felt like . . .

Her shoulders tense and she has to stop in her tracks and pause while she takes a deep breath, it helps but her pulse is racing, so she quickens her pace in order to flank Ryan once again.

_Crazy_, she berates herself. _Plain crazy_. She's being ridiculous over nothing.

Esposito has stopped at the far end of the alley where the space dead ends at a chain link fence that separates them from deserted train tracks along the water on the far side. He pulls his cell phone from his jacket pocket, double checks on the address they're looking for, before he turns to Kate.

"This one," he says – pointing to an almost derelict structure, its windows are all blown out and a faded sign with its paint peeling off in layers proclaims the place, 'Reynolds Self Storage'.

It's a depressing place to die, but a fittingly cliché venue for a shootout between rival drug-gangs. Kate can picture it all already. She steps closer to the building, planning on checking out the inside but Ryan's hand closes tight around her right elbow and he pulls her back.

"What?" she murmurs to him.

Uneasy blue eyes meet hers.

"Nothing . . . everything," he whispers back. "Look, this place is creepy if you must know, and I guess I'm just trying to understand what exactly it is that you're hoping to find with this Beckett. I mean all evidence from that day is long gone . . . "

She nods. "I know. But I still need to see it Kev, if I'm going to be able to picture it. Where was Slaughter standing when Valez shot him? Where Valez was hiding in wait? Could he have been seen by anyone in that location? Because the Cazadores and the Westies were lured here every bit as much as Detective Slaughter was. Valez set them against each other to hide his own crime – so is there any chance that he could have been seen? I mean, I'm just trying to form a complete picture here."

Ryan smiles releasing her arm, "Okay," he replies.

"None of us cared," she states suddenly, passionately. "A cop died in a hail of gunfire and because he was so disliked his death got put in a box and left there. And we have to put that right, and not just for Castle guys – we have to put that right period, and that starts here. It starts by us figuring out all the mechanics of how that day really went down. What the picture looked like, what the real story was that day."

Her gaze travels between them pleading her case.

Esposito bites his lip, then silently pulls a flashlight from his pocket and leads them inside the derelict storage facility without further comment. Ryan repeats his earlier 'okay' and follows him, Beckett guards the rear.

Once the three cops have entered the building, shadows pass across the windows two floors above them and in the alley at their back four men in dark clothing gather, before they follow them inside.

* * *

Castle goes to move past his father on his way to the door but the CIA operative immediately moves to block him.

The two men have been waiting and watching the alley below them for the past two hours, wondering when Beckett and her team would show up and Gabor has new respect for his son now. He's still unhappy that Castle insisted on coming with him, believes it's too dangerous for his son to be here, but at least he's feeling more confident in this moment about Castle's ability to hold himself in check.

When the novelist's beautiful partner had come into view moments before, Gabor had felt himself start to panic. He almost expected Castle to call out to her, blow their position, but his son had instead merely gone rigid – as if in shock – his face stunned and his eyes simply riveted to every move she made as the detectives from the Twelfth Precinct headed past them and towards the abandoned storage facility at the far end of the alley where Ethan Slaughter had been killed.

Neither Castle nor Gabor had been able to hear the conversation between the partners before they finally headed inside the derelict structure, and Gabor had been content to simply keep a watch out for them, until Valez' men began to appear.

"Stay here," the operative instructs the writer firmly, baring Castle's exit from the room two buildings closer to the park end of the alley where they've been holed up and waiting.

Castle shakes his head slowly, his expression like granite.

"No," he says, deceptively softly. "Kate's in danger. And _nothing_ you could ever say Gabor will keep me here."

Richard Gabor's hands fist in frustration.

"But I've got this," he says with total confidence. "And she's a cop Richard, she can handle this. Between myself and her two partners I assure you we'll be able to handle this without you. After everything there is no real need here for you to risk yourself in this."

Castle smiles grimly, his eyes as stony as flint.

"Like I said, I don't care what you say." He steps into his father's space as if to intimidate him. "My partner needs me and it's this simple - _I_ watch her back. That's just the way it is Gabor – always."

The operative still doesn't move from his position blocking the writer's exit through the door but he studies the younger man's face assessing him. He reads the tense line of Castle's jaw, the wild committed light in his son's eyes and realizes not for the first time just how insanely proud he is of this man his only son grew up to be. The man he's still so terrified of losing to this. For forty years he's watched from the sidelines somewhat sporadically, just keeping tabs and occasionally covertly assisting when he could. But firmly on the very fringes of Castle's world is where he's always remained. It kept his son safely anonymous, kept his son's mother from ever being used against him, and it was – Gabor admits this only now, in this moment – it was easy. The easier path that he trod - knowing that the only two people he loved existed but so separated from him that he didn't have to ever carry around the kind of fear he would have been forced to live with every day - if he'd stayed with Martha and raised Richard as maybe he could have. If he'd engaged into a life with them.

Well he's engaged now. He's completely invested and his son is blatantly telling him he's walking into danger whatever Gabor thinks about it, not because he's forced to – because there is no other choice - but because he's _choosing _to, and it hits the operative so hard that he doesn't have any right to get in Castle's way. How he wonders, how in the hell does Martha live with this fear for their son every single day?

The operative blows out a breath he didn't know he was even holding, finds himself nodding even as he doesn't yet move to step aside.

"Incognito then," he says his voice heavy, graven with the sheer force of the inevitability of all this.

Castle's eyes narrow. "I'm sorry?"

Gabor reaches into his black cargo pants pocket, pulls out first one and then a second thin black nylon skiing balaclava. He hands one to the writer.

"We don't need to advertize who we are – not yet. If Valez is here he doesn't need the highly useful information that you're alive or that his CIA liaison is working against him. Now does he?"

Castle grins - agreeing, and grabs the proffered headgear. He pulls it on over his distinctive handsome face, hiding it completely from view. His father does the same.

At the door to the stairs that will allow them access to the alley the two men pause, and each pulls from an ankle holster the guns they're wearing. It's hard to read or telegraph an expression with your face covered, but Castle can see the residual fear residing in Gabor's vivid eyes. He speaks to ease it.

"Hey, I've taken you down hand to hand old man, and when I shoot - I don't miss," he says seriously. Behind the dark concealing fabric the writer senses the tension in his father's face erase. Gabor nods his head.

"Follow my lead and at least _try_ to do only what I tell you," he pleads.

"No promises," Castle replies firmly, his deep voice hard. "Now we go."

* * *

The inside of the long vacated 'Reynolds Self Storage' is littered with garbage, leaves and random pieces of its original construction materials. Bits of re-bar have been ripped from the walls, there are holes in the plaster and chunks of what looks like ceiling everywhere – the building should by all rights be listed as condemned. It's an old-fashioned storage space, a huge central hall and four stories of locker bays connected by rusting iron walkways above them. It affords plenty of places to hide and a maze of corridors and gantries, if you wanted to ambush someone – it would be hard to pick a better place to do it.

Beckett and the boys pick their way carefully through the debris as they look around them; CSU must have had a nightmare of a time going over this place six months ago.

"Esposito, do you have the photos from the file on your phone?" Kate asks him.

Her partner nods, pulling the information she's requested up quickly. Kate leans into his space assessing them; she flicks through the file and then looks around the space again, pointing at length to the southwest corner of the hall beyond them.

"Over there," she says quietly. "That's where they found him."

The three partners make their way through the building to the spot in the far corner where their colleague died. Six months and little in the way of crime scene clean-up in a building no-one uses, and the dark brown stains on the concrete that denote a cop's spilled blood are still visible. Kate crouches before them, running her fingertips gently across the dirty floor. No-one, she thinks – no-one's life should end here. Kate closes her eyes for a moment, sends a silent prayer up for Ethan Slaughter's soul.

"I will get you justice," she vows to the memory of him. "Somehow I will make Cesar Valez pay."

Their quiet exploration of the murder scene is interrupted violently when a bullet pings loudly off of the concrete right next to her, sending a small cloud of dust swirling immediately into the air and startling the crap out of everyone.

Esposito and Ryan immediately close in around her, and Beckett pushes to her feet as horribly exposed the threesome pull their weapons arming themselves, while they scan the huge space around them for their assailant. Trying to make themselves a harder target as they move together as one unit until there's a wall at their backs. At least it cuts off one direction for someone coming at them or shooting, but the area around them is still too open – and in all truth there is really nowhere for them to hide. Not one of them is wearing a vest either, and recalling Castle's stringent warnings to them, Kate feels truly foolish that even though this shouldn't have required them - they took a risk.

"Where did the shot come from?" She hisses at Esposito.

Frowning, his face like thunder her partner's eyes dart all around them. For Christ's sake – they're sitting ducks.

"I'm not sure," he whispers apologetically. My attention was focused on you, but seeing as I can't actually see anyone, I'm guessing from above us - somewhere on one of those old walkways if you press me."

Ryan nods in agreement.

"The shot came from above, definitely," he says frowning. "Just like the shot that killed Slaughter did."

There is no exit close to them, but when a second shot doesn't come Kate indicates that they should move along the wall some, up ahead there is an alcove that might shelter them.

With Kate in the middle, Ryan is closest to the direction she thinks they should go, he takes but a half shuffling step before another shot pings off the wall a few scant inches beyond him.

"NYPD," Kate yells into the cavernous space. "Put down your weapon and show yourself."

Laughter greets her declaration, and then she sees them. Emerging from the shadows beside the door through which they entered - four armed Mexican gang members in dark clothing. Footsteps echo on the gantry overhead, and more laughter follows.

Esposito shares a quick glance with Ryan before he aims up and Ryan continues to keep his weapon trained on the men approaching them with Beckett.

"Hold it right there," Ryan commands, before he fires past them into the wall – making it clear that he isn't fucking around. The gang-bangers hold their ground as if they're waiting, but they don't actually come any closer. Effectively they're acting to just keep the three cops there.

"Put down your weapons," Kate repeats again.

Instead of laughter a voice she recognizes drifts down towards her from the gantry and Cesar Valez himself comes into view. His arm is wrapped securely around a hostage, a woman it looks like but it's hard to tell because the hostage has a sack cloth draped over their head. The drug lord has a gun pressed tightly against the person's skull.

_Shit._

"Now, now. I would suggest under the circumstance that it would be advisable if you were to put down yours instead," he says smugly. "Unless of course you'd like more spilled innocent blood on your hands, Detective Beckett?"

Heart hammering in her chest Kate shakes her head. She knows Ryan and Esposito won't leave her, but Valez has a hostage, plus a man on the walkway with him and four more of his cohorts with guns trained on her partner's heads. And that's just the gang members she can currently see, Valez controls a virtual army and there is no way for her to know how many others there may be. Somehow Valez knew they were coming and they've walked into an ambush in much the same fashion Detective Slaughter did – Kate's mind scrambles frantically, searching for a way to get everybody out of this.

The trouble is – she's got nothing.

"You are not innocent," she yells impotently up to him as the standoff continues.

Valez inclines his head, "Maybe not chica," he growls derisively, before he whips the sack cloth off of his hostages head, "But we both know that she is," he adds overly dramatically.

Kate hears her partners' twin gasps beside her, but she's dumbstruck, rendered mute in horror.

"Oh God, he's got Mrs. R," Ryan says swallowing convulsively, and Kate can see Esposito's hands shaking from here.

Martha stares down at her, meeting Kate's eyes and appearing unafraid. Maybe it should, but it doesn't surprise her – Martha hasn't coped well with it, but since Castle went missing his mother has maintained that she has little left to fear. There's a huge bruise purpling the side of the actresses' lovely face. Traces of blood mix with the vivid copper of her hair at her temple above it and Kate can see her hands are bound somehow behind her.

Beckett shifts her gaze from Martha to Valez; the drug lords' eyes are dark and empty, cold but somehow pleased.

"Insurance plan," he announces, smiling broadly, smugness all over his evil face.

Yeah, she gets it. How and when he snatched up Martha – that's just another mess to unravel, and another avenue of attack against her that Beckett hates herself now for failing to anticipate. She'd figured leaving Martha out of all the recent events that have occurred would be enough to protect her – this she just did not see. She shifts her gaze back to Castle's mother, horror and apology written starkly all over her tortured face. Martha's lips quirk ever so slightly and the actress gives just the tiniest shake of her head. Kate reads the message clearly – 'better me any day darling, than Alexis', and the detective nods back at Martha slightly, she does not, and could not ever, disagree.

Beckett feels her heart fill up with despair and the leaden weight of responsibility she feels because this is all her fault. From Castle's disappearance, to Slaughter's murder, and the deaths of Valez' wife and children that started it all falling – all of this hangs on one set of careless actions and loose words, and she cannot let Ryan and Esposito or God forbid Martha, be added to the growing casualty pile as a result of her errors. She won't allow that, not if she has any power left within her to prevent it.

He comes to her then, the crystal clear image of Castle's beloved face in her mind and greedily she holds onto it for her courage. She sends him a silent litany of apologies that she will not make it through this. That she's failed him in what he's asked of her – failed to make it safe for him to come home, failed to protect the others that he loves so fiercely.

She'd give anything at all to change it.

'_I love you_, _Rick_'- she tells him under her breath, hoping that wherever he is he still knows it. '_Please f__orgive me for leaving you_ _like this.'_

And then she pushes past her partners suddenly, stepping out in front of them all alone and completely vulnerable as she drops her weapon from trembling fingertips, fighting for composure when it clatters loudly on the ground.

"Beckett, NO." Esposito yells instantly. She throws him a glance full of apology over her shoulder.

'_I'm sorry. I'm sorry - I have too.'_She mouths to him.

"Kate, don't be reckless," Ryan hisses. "We'll get out of this."

"Get Martha out of this," she tells them both quietly, her eyes heavy and her decision certain. Unwavering. "And tell Castle . . ."

"No," Ryan interrupts, shouting. "No Kate. You can't possibly make me tell him that you gave up."

She shrugs.

"Tell him I'm very sorry. And tell him that I love him Kev – that I always loved him. That I did right from the beginning. You tell him that I'll always be with him."

Angry tears have gathered in the young Irishman's bright eyes.

"Pick up you gun Detective Beckett, and step back here," he orders. "Javi – tell her."

Esposito nods. "Listen to him Beckett. Do as he says."

Kate shakes her head, "He's got Castle's mother. His _mother_," she pleads in a whisper. "I won't let him lose his mother because of me."

Beckett takes a further step away from the shelter of her partners; she turns her attention fully back to where Valez is watching her gleefully – the bastard is completely enjoying this.

"You're right," she calls up to him. "She is innocent, and we both know that your quarrel is not with her but with me."

Valez inclines his head in agreement. "Then I don't have to explain to you. You should all put down your weapons though Detective, and then just maybe I'll let the lovely lady here go free."

Beckett shakes her head. "You let her walk out of here with my partners." She offers instead. "You do that – and you get to keep me."

Laughter once more echoes all around them.

"Oh that's not how this works I'm afraid," Valez responds. "No cop is leaving here, and there will be no evidence against me. You don't understand any of the power I hold here do you Detective? You have no idea how bullet proof you've made me."

Kate swallows, she knows far more than he realizes because of Castle's novel – but none of that knowledge can help her right now, right here. Her eyes dart to Martha's and suddenly she sees it in the actresses face - a clear and certain knowledge glows boldly there in the older woman's eyes. Martha knows, maybe she's overheard what Valez has planned for them, but regardless of what Valez might promise her, he plans to wipe out everyone one of them – Castle's mother included - and leave no trace of it behind him.

It hits Kate hard – that knowledge, and her stomach plummets with the realization that she can't think of a single way out of this for any of them. They can start shooting, but it won't save their lives.

Valez has them – and with the Feds in his pocket, he'll most likely walk free.

She's lost.

Except she isn't, luckily for Kate, deliverance is already here.

* * *

Gabor and Castle slip inside the storage facility soundlessly, finding a Mexican standoff in progress two hundred feet or so in front of them. The writer gasps inside but holds it rigidly in, he looks to Gabor for instructions and the operative makes a simple hand gesture in lieu of a reply. Castle nods and the pair split up – his father's instruction was clear, 'I'll go low ', and 'you go high'. Gabor is playing the numbers game; there are two bad guys up on the gantry and four here on the ground floor – he's given Castle the lower number to deal with.

The writer sticks to the shadows, climbing the metal staircase to the first floor silently. He hugs the walls as his father has taught him, the gun in his hand a comforting weight as his focus narrows rigidly – his mission crystal clear. Take out the two men on the gantry, and trust Gabor to handle the others. Adrenaline surges throughout his body, his muscles tighten with anticipation – Castle is ready.

He reaches the very edge of the gantry before he sees that Valez has his mother, and his heart begins literally triple timing in his chest. He's close enough now to everything to hear the words that Kate is so softly saying down below him. He hears her giving up, handing her life over as a sacrifice, offering everything to get the others out of this.

At first his heart just breaks.

And then all he sees is red.

* * *

The situation changes in a few short seconds that later recall feels like complete slow-motion.

Two black-clad whirlwinds strike almost simultaneously.

On the ground floor of the storage warehouse Valez four cohorts don't even see what hits them as Gabor comes out of nowhere and with a few lightening quick moves of his body he takes them all down. The last one to get knocked out gets a shot off into the air, but it isn't aimed at anything and he's down on the ground unconscious before he can even think about firing another one.

On the gantry overhead however shots are fired, and Gabor looks up in fear – terrified by what he might find.

* * *

The steel walkway is somewhat narrow and Castle can't get to Valez or free his mother without removing the man who stands in the way. He fires a single shot that hits the gang member center mass and as the man drops like a stone Castle sees Valez turn in the direction of the shot through a red haze. Valez fires in Castle's direction, eyes wide in astonishment at the appearance of an armed masked stranger interfering in his careful plans. Castle has already moved like lightening, his body no longer in the path of Valez' bullet and he runs the man down before the drug lord can re-aim. He doesn't dare to simply shoot at Valez when the man is holding Castle's mother in the way.

The writer collides with them hard, knocking Valez gun from his hand and sending Martha flying. Castle winces when her head bounces on the metal walkway and she lies still and pale in a crumpled heat, then all he sees is Valez' face. All he feels is the five terminally long months without Kate and his family that this asshole has cost him – his fists and elbows, his knees even - fly.

* * *

On the floor below Esposito and Ryan recover the quickest. Kicking the gang members' guns twenty feet or so away, they cuff the four fallen men together before they turn to check on Kate and find out who the hell their masked savior is?

"Beckett you okay?" Javier asks in clipped tones before he trains his weapon on a silent Gabor (just in case) who waits motionless now next to her – his eyes still trained up.

Kate shakes off the daze and meets her partner's concerned dark eyes.

"Yeah," she mumbles. "Yeah Javi, I'm okay."

She turns to Gabor.

"Who are you?" She asks the silent operative, but he makes no immediate reply, his attention remains riveted upwards now that the threat that was his responsibility is no longer in the way.

Following Gabor's gaze, Kate and the boys also focus their attention on the gantry.

* * *

"Richard you can stop now," his mother's gentle voice penetrates the angry fog surrounding him, and Castle drops his raised fists to his sides. Cesar Valez is unconscious – maybe dead, on the walkway below him. Nose clearly broken, blood smeared completely across his face, he lies motionless with his head at an angle.

The writer hears his mother speak to him again.

"Richard? Richard that is you – isn't it?"

Castle pushes from his knees to his feet to find Martha clutching the railing but at least she's upright. _Thank God_. Her knowing blue eyes staring at him lovingly and it occurs to the writer that even though his face is covered, his mother still knows who he is. He glances below him, sees Gabor has taken out all the threats downstairs and is silently watching him. Kate and the boys seem to be waiting on him also.

Castle rips the balaclava from his head.

* * *

Gabor catches her before her partner's can, when Kate's legs give out beneath her. All the air in her lungs has disappeared, and her heart is skipping beats erratically inside her chest – she can't fathom the situation properly, doesn't quite believe her own eyes and what they are telling her they see - she's deathly afraid she's hallucinating now.

She desperately needs who she sees up there to be real. Helplessly she stares up into vivid eyes before she starts to cry with relief.

"Castle?" She calls out weakly.

The writer nods, leans over the railing slightly his bloodied hand stretching out towards her. His eyes are as full as Beckett's as he smiles down into her lovely face,

"Hey baby," he answers softly. "It's me."


	31. Chapter 31

**Chapter Thirty One: **We can breathe in together as one.

* * *

_"Hey baby," he answers softly. "It's me."_

* * *

Kate stares up into his beautiful perfect face, smiling down at her like an angel from the gantry thirty feet over her head, and the sound of his voice sends a fresh wave of liquid emotion cascading down her pale cheeks, it also galvanizes her like absolutely nothing else possibly could.

Strength flows suddenly into all her limbs and her heart pounds loud and true again within her chest. Air once more floods her lungs because he's here and he's alive and she wants him – she _wants _him, and she needs to hold him and feel his arms around her – right now. Needs the scent of him in her lungs and his mouth against hers, and the want is intensely desperate, because she's just been starved of him for so very long. Her body is thrumming with it, so she pushes against the arms holding her up, her legs firm and sturdy once again beneath her.

She doesn't want to tear her eyes from his but she's just got to get up there, got to throw herself completely against the solid warm reality of him. Kate's face breaks into a smile, lips turning up in a remembered way, eyes crinkling as her joy sweeps across all the angles and planes – telling Castle silently everything that she's feeling. Then Kate spins, she turns to find the stairs that will reunite them and finds herself – to her horror - on the business end of a gun barrel once again. Her eyes widen, her jaw tenses in disbelief and the sting of betrayal hurtles through her.

_No way, just no way. What the hell is going on here?_

"Nobody move." Detective Roselyn Karpowski's finger twitches against the trigger of her sig, and the barrel moves subtly backwards and forwards between Beckett, the masked man standing behind her and Detectives Ryan and Esposito. Her conviction is plain in the defiant expression on her face and the stone-cold light in her usually dark and expressive eyes.

She repeats her request with emphasis, because she knows exactly who and what she's up against here – and what they'll feel about the allegiance she has just displayed.

"Nobody fucking move – you understand me? And that means you too-"she yells up towards the gantry, flicking her eyes up and meeting those of the author who is now looking down at her in horror.

"Unless of course you want me to shoot her that is?" she says icily, nodding her head towards Kate.

Castle shakes his head, wishing he had his gun in his hand but its behind him somewhere on the floor of the walkway – beside the prone unmoving form of Cesar Valez. Frustrated, the prior horror in his face gives way suddenly, his eyes coming alive with an absolute deadly fury instead.

"I will end you, if you do that," he promises his voice low and lethal. "Backstabbing mole that you apparently are – Karpowski, how could you?"

It's the question on all of her colleagues' lips Karpowski can see that, and for an instant - deep inside her, there is regret. Regret for the camaraderie lost and the shared goals long gone. Regret for the friendships she once treasured - that for her at least, died on the day so many months ago now when her course was reset and her vendetta born and she knew none of them could ever understand.

"My sister died because of her," she spits into the air, the venom in her voice dripping all over and flowing towards Kate, her eyes firing daggers now Beckett's way.

"My sister was tortured, beaten and raped before she was murdered. And all because of her, because of Slaughter and his big mouth," she turns to look up at the gantry again, "because of you too," she hisses at Castle. "And your stupid idea to get yourself involved with that animal."

"What-" Kate's voice is broken and bleeding and a single word is all she can manage as her mind spirals.

Espo, on the other hand is not so afflicted.

"Karpowski you don't even have a sister." Javi is glowering, bristling all over, so Ryan reaches out and steadies his partner with a hand. Esposito is especially testy about crooked cops – disloyalty, and Ryan doesn't want him to do anything stupid here.

Tears fill the female detectives' eyes then, and the slender hands cupped around the butt of her gun begin trembling.

"I did," she retorts. "Look at me Esposito – do I really look like I should have a polish surname to you? I was adopted, that's how I came to this country – but Maria stayed with our mother. I'd only just found her right before she died."

Beckett's eyes flare with understanding.

"Your sister was Valez' wife," she says quietly, knowing she's correct from the immediate flare of the other woman's nostrils. "God, Rose. I'm so very sorry for what happened to her."

Empathy leaks from Kate's emerald gaze, obvious, genuine pain for the loss her fellow detective has suffered and for a moment the force of it causes Karpowski's hands to begin shaking. An unreadable expression passes across her face and the barrel of her gun slowly lowers a fraction, but then the shaking stops entirely and its apparent to everyone that Kate's obvious compassion, has only served to make the other woman angrier.

"They killed her in the worst way because of you," she screams at Beckett, the pain in her voice raw, ragged. "Then they killed my nieces and my nephew too. Cesar was going to make you pay for that – take away what you love - he promised me. So if he can't finish this, then I will Beckett. Cesar took care of Slaughter for me, now its only right that I take care of you for him. And maybe then my sister will finally rest in peace."

Kate swallows convulsively, "Rose I-"

**"**Kate isn't at fault here. She didn't do anything," Castle yells from above. "You want to blame someone for this Karpowski – then you should blame me."

Kate shakes her head, looks back and up at him, her eyes pleading with him to stay quiet.

"Castle, no-"

The writer silences her with a sharp look.

**"**Kate, we both know it's true. I got us into bed with Ethan Slaughter – so this entire situation is because of me."

On the ground floor of the storage warehouse however, Karpowski shakes her head furiously – refusing it seems to be swayed. She ignores the writer's words completely and focuses her sights entirely on Beckett. The author has a split second to make a decision now, try again to get the rogue detective to engage with him, or take advantage of her lack of focus on him right now and start for the stairs. He throws an apologetic glance at his mother and grabs up his fallen gun, before he madly dashes for the stairwell.

In his head he's pleading with the universe for the time it'll take him to reach them, coming up with and discarding methods of removing the threat most effectively. Richard Gabor has trained him well.

He reaches the ground floor and carefully edges up to the doorway that will lead him into the storage facilities main room but the gunshot sounds loudly before he can get there. The writer's blood runs ice cold.

_Oh please God - no. Not now, not ever again – if some thing has happened to her – he won't survive it._

* * *

Gabor reads the decision on Karpowski's face the instant she makes it. Instincts honed over forty years telegraph to the CIA operative, the twitch of a pinky finger, the tightening of a frown line, the tiny readjustment of the sig sauer in the detective's hand. Karpowski narrows her eyes as she looks at Beckett and Gabor knows the trigger pull is imminent, and in that split second he has to change Kate's fate he chooses consciously - makes the only choice he can live with, and he does it for Rick.

There isn't time to disarm her, but there is just enough for him to get in the way, and if he can direct her aim just a fraction lower – he might even survive it.

* * *

For Kate the events are a blur. One moment Castle is trying to distract and engage Karpowski – get her to focus her anger and revenge at him and for a long drawn out moment it seems Roselyn hesitates, the next a dark blur obstructs her vision and a there's a gunshot. She flinches automatically but the burning pain she's expecting never happens, instead the dark blur finishes disarming the rogue detective and her partners rush past her, knocking Karpowski to the ground and immobilizing her with her own police cuffs.

She realizes in a sudden rush of awareness that the dark blur is just the masked man wearing all black who took out four of Valez' men single-handedly before Karpowski joined the party – Kate turns to thank him, just as Gabor crashes to his knees and keels over on the ground, blood pooling in an ever increasing swirl of dark liquid beneath his prone form. Understanding hits her sharply. Castle's masked accomplice has purposely incurred harm to himself in order to save her life. How can this be? She doesn't even know '_who' _her saviour is?

* * *

Castle makes it to Kate's side just as Beckett drops to her knees beside the crumpled form in black who lies motionless on the cold dirty concrete floor.

_Gabor._

The writer's stomach turns over and the sheer panic that hits him is unexpected. Gabor has only been a part of Castle's life for five months, and the circumstances have been trying to say the least. Yet the writer has grown attached to the man who sired him, and the concept of losing his father already is just . . .

Castle crouches next to Kate, his focus splintering and torn in two. He wants absolutely nothing more than to hold the woman he loves and never let her go, and yet his father is lying in an ever growing puddle of blood and Kate's pale slender fingers are pushing down hard on the wound low on the CIA operatives abdomen- applying pressure as she tries desperately to impede the flow.

He settles for placing his larger, stronger hands over hers and as she turns into him he blindly finds her lips with his, kissing her hard, the movement of their mouths frenzied and beautiful – and _so_ not enough. So not even close to enough and painfully brief, they nevertheless pull back weirdly in sync, their eyes locking on each other as each of them steals just a few precious seconds in order to drink the other one in.

"Castle. Oh God, Castle." Beckett exhales the words across his mouth and he hears every second of their five month separation in the break of her voice, the way she caresses the consonants of his name.

"I love you," he says, responding to the need in her eyes. "I love you. Kate, I heard the shot and I thought, I thought . . ." He can't finish the words because although she's intact and completely, perfectly, gorgeously whole beside him - that shot will echo in his heart forever now, and his father is bleeding. His_ father_ is bleeding out beneath their joined hands here.

Castle's attention turns to the CIA operative and the writer finds his father watching he and Kate intently – fully conscious although his breathing already seems to be growing shallow, and his limbs are faintly trembling. The writer shakily risks moving a single bloody hand as he pulls the balaclava free of the spy's head, grasping his father's shoulder tightly as he leans closer in.

"Help is coming," he says, realizing as soon as the words leave his mouth that it's not a lie because on the periphery of his hearing Castle's already registered Esposito is calling their location in.

Gabor manages a tight smile through the pain, "Valez?" he questions.

Castle shakes his head. "Either unconscious or dead maybe – I didn't check. Neutralized, at least for now," he reports.

Gabor coughs. "Tell me your mother is okay?" he begs.

The writer nods. "She's okay – I promise."

The operative smiles again, but more weakly. "Nail him, Richard. Promise me that you'll nail him properly now. You throw everything you can make stick at him - if he lives. Make it politically impossible for the Agency to steal him away – it's the only way to ensure your safety now. Both of you," he adds, his eyes flicking from Rick to Kate.

Castle nods, grips his father tighter.

"You'll be here to help me," he says with determination.

Gabor grins, raises a shaking arm so his hand can cup the side of Castle's face.

"I'm so sorry I wasn't there for you before this," he say gently, his pain filled bright blue eyes full with forty years worth of apologies.

The author frowns. "Don't be, just be here now," he pleads.

The spy's eyes drift out of focus and slowly close, and Castle panics instantly, he shakes his father almost violently, words he never thought in his wildest dreams he'd ever utter spilling freely from his lips, a huge swell of emotion behind them.

"Dad! Gabor, don't you dare. Dad please - _don't_ leave me."

Gabor's eyes remain closed as Kate gasps loudly in shock beside him as as it registers with her exactly who her rescuer is. Castle turns his head instinctively into the shelter of his partner's body, his eyes squeezing shut as pain flares hotly in his chest robbing him of the ability to draw breath, and Kate curves herself over him awkwardly, her hands still busy - occupied trying to staunch the slick, hot, sticky flow of Richard Gabor's blood.

But her soft words reach him.

"He's still breathing, Castle he's still breathing I promise you. Help is on the way." Kate whispers to him.

And Castle's lungs fill again with air.

**A/N: I feel bad doing this to Karpowski's character now that she saved our Caskett Christmas - but since I planned this six months ago I just couldn't change it now. Don't be too mad at me!**


	32. Chapter 32

**A/N: Life, illness, business trip = delay after delay after delay. Forgive me.**

* * *

**Chapter Thirty Two:** Nothing's broke and nothing's missing.

* * *

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Castle looks at Martha's pale wan face and reaches out his hand to steady his mother at the elbow. In the overly bright light of the hospital corridor her hair looks truly flame-red and it washes all the color from her face, leaching her of life.

Gabor's surgery has gone as well as anyone could have expected, and Castle's father is still currently among the living - although his condition is listed as 'critical' and all the surgeon would say post-op was that if the CIA operative made it through the night, then they could be 'hopeful'. Castle will take that. Somehow, someway he already knows in his bones that Gabor will make it through this; the man is too strong and too damned stubborn to die on him now.

Besides, Castle owes him everything at this point. His life, Kate's life, and that kind of means Alexis' and Martha's too. Still, his mother has been through an ordeal and he isn't at all sure she's up for spending the night at anyone's bedside. Valez didn't exactly treat her gently and Castle himself is responsible for the fall that caused her to bang her head – it's a very mild concussion, but still . . .

Martha bites her lip in a gesture she seems to have picked up from Kate in his absence, and so the author waits her out, tries to assess in the momentary silence what the inscrutable look on her face is really all about. All he comes up with though is that the actress looks – nervous.

"I want to be there," she tells him softly and at length. "It's just, I haven't seen him since the night you were conceived Richard and so it's really not my place, I mean – it's been forty years."

Castle smiles widely and his mother's eyes widen in surprise.

"What?" she questions.

He squeezes her arm where he's already holding her by the elbow.

"It's your place, Mother," he says, his eyes alight and his expression tranquil, but with such surety behind it that Martha can't contain the slight gasp of surprise as she reads the wealth of knowledge apparent on her son's face.

"Really?" she asks. And there are a hundred questions contained in that single word.

Castle nods. "I know many things about my father now," he tells her. "Including exactly how he's always felt about _you, _and how precious his memories of that day are to him. I know he's held onto them tightly, relived them again and again, Mother."

"Oh," the actress replies, biting her lip again as tears float across her vivid blue eyes. She sways slightly in his steadying grasp, before she suddenly straightens her spine and Castle senses her exerting the full force of her formidable will as she stands taller and stronger.

"I loved him you know," she says, her voice quietly truthful. And Castle doesn't doubt it any longer, because even though his parents only knew each other a day – he's seen for himself how those feelings live in the both of them even now. All these years later, the mark that day left on the pair of them is still so clear.

It's remarkably comforting to him – a comfort he never knew he was missing before all this.

"He loved you too," he replies. "If you truly feel up to staying – there is no-one he'd rather see when he opens his eyes. Trust me on this."

Martha smiles, takes a deep breath and nods.

"I'm staying. I need too."

Castle turns to go.

"Richard-"

"Yeah?"

"You aren't going to vanish again right? Please tell me this is over now?"

The writer frowns.

"Almost," he replies.

"What does that mean exactly?"

Castle shrugs helplessly, but when he speaks he's vehement. "Mother, Gabor is CIA – he had an assignment and Valez has been under their protection. I don't know that Kate has enough yet to prosecute him for murder and make it stick, make it enough of a case that the CIA backs off. But even if she doesn't I'm back, I'm here now. I won't leave her, Alexis or you unprotected _ever_ again."

Martha nods thoughtfully. "Your father, he didn't give you any choice in the matter the first time – did he?"

Castle shakes his head. "No," he admits. "None at all."

"And yet, you seem to have come to care for him," she says knowingly.

Her son smiles, "I came to understand his motives, all that was driving him. And to be honest, I found him just impossible to dislike. I'm his only child and he was as ardent in his desire to protect me as he was in his trying to fulfill his obligations to his job – more so – in the end. He's a good man, Mother."

Martha nods, "I'm glad then – that you've gotten to know him, and I'm sorry Richard – for keeping everything I knew about him to myself, even if it was precious little really."

Castle steps closer and plants a tender kiss on Martha's forehead.

"Don't be," he whispers into her hair. "I always had you, Mother. It was enough – believe me."

The actress gives him a watery smile and disappears into Gabor's intensive-care hospital room and Castle heads anxiously back to the waiting room to find Kate and the others.

* * *

Beckett's eyes have been glued to the corridor Castle and Martha disappeared down since the second he left. Every moment he's out of her sight is agony and when his tall, broad form reappears she feels like Atlas suddenly relieved of the weight of the world and she's out of her seat and on him in the span of a heartbeat.

Kate collides with him and Castle feels it too, relief, love, gratitude and an almost overwhelming desire to be alone with her and reconnect himself to her - physically.

The need and the heat that flares up so quickly has their eyes locking and the rest of the world just falling away.

Life interrupts as ever though, when Alexis arrives and Castle extricates himself with an apology on his face that Kate waves away. They've had a hard time getting hold of the writer's daughter since they arrived at the hospital hours before with Gabor – and the strain of not being able to share her father's return with her has worn on them all.

"Dad-"

Castle opens his arms and the young red-head slams into him even harder than Kate did moments earlier. He picks her up like he used to when she was little, cradles her against his strong chest and squeezes.

"Hi pumpkin," he breathes into her hair, squeezing harder as the college student starts to sob against him.

"Oh, Dad-"

"I know," Castle says soothingly. "Me too, baby bird. Its okay now, Alexis. It's all going to be okay now – I promise."

Her face buried against his neck, Castle still feels her smiling through her tears.

"I missed you so _much_," she whispers. "I missed you every day. Don't ever leave me again Dad, ever – please."

"Not ever," the writer agrees. "Not ever again, I swear."

Finally pulling back Alexis beams at him, and Castle sets her back on her dainty feet, brushing the tears from her face with his thumbs. His daughter nuzzles his hand, her eyes darting to a smiling Kate, and the writer rejoices as the two people he loves the most share a moment of joy between them.

Freeing a hand he reaches back for Kate's and as their fingers entwine tightly he takes a second to close his eyes and just - breathe.

He's home. Kate's safe and Alexis is safe and his mother is safe and Gabor made it through surgery.

As moments go – it would be hard to beat this one, so he stops and he takes another breath in it.

Before he has to open his eyes, and let it go.

The writer turns to the seated Ryan and Esposito.

"Is there any update on Valez?" he asks them.

Esposito stands, frowning.

"Unfortunately," he begins, "you didn't manage to kill him when you beat the bastard senseless. And I'm sorry about that Castle – might have been better all round if he'd done us all the favor of dying then."

Castle nods.

"Yeah I know. So what now?" he asks. "The CIA could come for him at any moment Espo – and with Gabor out of it right now, if they do and they take him into their custody . . . "the writer trails off.

"Then you and Kate remain in danger," Esposito finishes for him. "I know bro."

Castle turns his partner. "Do you have enough to make the case against him for Slaughter's murder stick?"

Beckett looks up at him and shakes her head.

"It's circumstantial at best. Lanie thinks she has something that might link him to the bullets that killed Slaughter. And we have a strong motive. But it's only enough for an arrest warrant at this point. I mean we've got him on abduction for your mother – no question, and what happened in the storage warehouse today strengthens our case – but if the Feds want him badly enough, would even an iron-clad case be enough to hold them off? Not to mention what a high-priced lawyer can do."

Castle nods. "Yes, it has to be. My father told me it would be enough for the CIA to back away from their operation if the NYPD's claim on Valez was tight enough. I don't pretend to know why exactly that is. But if we can nail Valez to the wall – this is over Kate. All we have to do is finish this case."

Ryan steps up to the group.

"Seems to me," he says, "That our best shot at it then is breaking Karpowski?"

Castle nods in agreement.

"She can gift-wrap Valez for us surely. She's done at the end of the day. Her NYPD career is over and she's going to jail for attempted murder at the very least. Plus conspiracy to commit murder, obstruction of justice-"

Beckett interrupts. "She has every reason _not_ to help us though, Rick," she says. "She hates us, blames us for her sister's murder every bit as much as Valez does. What do you suggest we use as leverage?"

"Everything she's thrown away," Castle replies. "She was a good cop before this Kate, and she knows it. If we want to break her – there's your way."

"Leave it to us," Esposito says with determination.

Kate shakes her head, "Javi I-"

"Go home," he interrupts quickly. "Go be with each other Beckett, and let Ryan and I worry about this now."

"Yeah," Ryan says nodding. "We've got Karpowski, and Captain Gates has people from IA that she trusts implicitly sitting on Valez' hospital room. He's not going anywhere with anyone, you can be assured of that."

Castle looks to Kate and waits to see what she wants to do. He won't push, if she wants to go to the precinct and keep working this he'll go with her – as desperately as he wants to simply take a few hours at the very least and go home."

Beckett however is waiting on him. She looks up into his face with hesitancy. 'Castle?"

"The boys have this," he tells her. "Please Kate, I just want a few hours to be finally – home."

"Okay," she replies, relief sweeping across her pale cheeks, before she adds softly, "Are you certain you're okay leaving your father, Rick? I mean his condition isn't really stable yet?"

Her partner nods. "My mother is with him. And I have faith that he's going to be alright, Kate. He's strong – trust me."

Beckett nods. "I still can't quite believe what he did," she confesses in a rush of anxiety. "He moved _so_ fast, but it was so calculated – I don't even understand how he knew she was about to shoot me, let alone why he would decide to sacrifice himself in such a way."

Castle looks serious in the wake of her declaration, guilt warring with admiration on his handsome face. "He did it for me," he tells her simply, "Because I would have done it – traded my life for yours, Kate."

The writer reaches out and cups his partner's cheek against his palm, holds her immobile with his gaze. "I would die for you Kate, and my father knows it. I would die without you – and he knows that too."

The brunette detective turns her face until she can kiss the writer's palm.

"He must love you almost as much as I do then," she whispers.

Castle manages a faint, reassuring smile.

"I honestly think he does," he admits. "I even believe now that he always has."

Beckett nods.

"Let's honor that and go home then, Castle. You, me and Alexis – let's go home."

* * *

Castle knees actually start to tremble a little when he exits the elevator in his apartment building and spies the door to the loft. Crazy. But he can't quite believe he's finally here – back home, and that the nightmare of the last five months is almost behind him.

He feels Kate crowding him at his back, and he smiles over at his daughter. Alexis hasn't stopped smiling since they left the hospital. Even though she pestered him with questions and demands that he put off for now. The details of exactly where he's been. The how's and the why's – there is time enough for that once the case is nailed down tight and the weight is finally lifted from his shoulders. But even through his evasions his daughter smiled, happy enough to just have her father restored to her – to be assured he wouldn't leave again.

At the door, butterflies erupt in his stomach and his palms grow damp, he looks helplessly at Kate who just nods at him with encouragement, before she wordlessly hands him a key.

The key sticks in the lock the way he remembers and Castle smiles inwardly, ridiculously pleased by such a stupid reminder of what's 'normal', and then the lock gives with that touch more pressure it's always needed. The door swings wide and he's just, speechless and ecstatic and as he crosses the threshold to his home and everything is so perfectly as he left it – the writer reaches out with both hands, yanks his girls into his arms and allows the silent tears of happiness to come.

* * *

Alexis joins them for coffee – another wonderful, 'normal' moment and then he sees his daughter silent assess both him and his partner before she puts aside her own needs and gifts to him what she can obviously see _he_ needs most.

"I'll be in my old room," she says, kissing him on the cheek before she hugs him hard and long and tightly. "I'll stay the night and see you both in the morning Dad – it's been a long day and it's really late. I'm tired," she adds.

It's both the truth and a lie and he's so grateful for it – loves his selfless daughter so damn much.

"Thank you," he mouths silently at her, out of Kate's sight, before he says softly, "Goodnight kiddo – I love you."

Alexis nods.

"I love you too, Dad. Goodnight, Kate."

"See you in the morning Alexis," Beckett answers. "We won't head into the precinct or to the hospital until we've seen you," she promises.

Castle waits until he hears the soft snick of the door to Alexis' room and then he whirls, is off his stool at the kitchen counter so fast Kate blinks at him and then he's tugging her into his arms, lifting her against him, lowering his mouth over her single squeak of surprise.

He lifts her effortlessly and still kissing her with abandon he heads towards their bedroom, kicks the door closed with a resounding bang behind them and heads for their bed.

Kate's recovered enough to wrap her legs around his torso, pulling him down onto her as he lowers her body onto the firm matress surface. Limbs all tangled she tugs at his clothing, succeeds at ridding him of his form fitting black top as she manages to tug it over his head. Greedy her hands reach for his body and then he feels her pause, push against his chest. Looking down with confusion he sees her beautiful eyes widen, sees her mouth form a perfect 'O'.

"Castle-"

She says his name like it's a question, he can't quite fathom why.

"Kate, why you'd stop me?" he asks.

Kate shakes her head, her hands once more reaching for him and she runs her fingertips across his stomach, he closes his eyes for a split second as desire rips through him. Forces it down, opens his eyes again and waits for her to explain.

"Oh my God, Castle," she whispers in amazement. "Look at you-"

Has he really changed so very much? He's in better shape now certainly; a lot stronger physically than he was five months ago – and thinner maybe, but still.

"You were beautiful always Castle – but you're . . . "she stops suddenly mid sentence, looks up into his face, like she's afraid she'll offend him somehow if she says anything more.

"Buff," he jokes for her. "I'm buff now."

It has the desired effect and makes Kate breathe out this beautiful peel of laughter that echoes around him. Breathless, her hair a corona around her head as she stares up at him from flat on her back on their bed before him. It's everything and she's everything and he's where he's prayed every night he'd eventually be.

Castle lowers his mouth to hers again, igniting the flame that always hovers there waiting and then he exults as the resultant conflagration consumes him.


	33. Chapter 33

**A/N: There is an 'interlude' M-rated chapter posted as a separate story so the rating can remain at 'T' for this one. 'Defying Gravity' is what happens between chapters 32 & 33 of this story. Thank you to those of you who have already read and reviewed it.**

* * *

**Chapter Thirty Three: **I'll keep you safe and warm you know I'm never gonna stop.

* * *

Curled against Castle's left side with her head pillowed on his chest, Kate rests as her breathing slows back down to normal. Beneath her ear the loud rhythmic pounding of her partner's heart soothes her every bit as much as the gentle motion of his fingertips drawing patterns and writing words against the bare skin of her lower back.

She thinks it's just possible that she missed _this_, the naked cuddling and the comfort of just being wrapped up against his body in a blissful 'post-coital' haze, almost more than anything else. They are completely themselves in these perfect golden moments when they can just 'be' and the outside world fails to intrude.

It's with a sudden tightness in her chest that she breaks it.

Tipping her face up so that she can look at him she studies him silently for a few more seconds, drinks in the solid reality of him until she can no longer contain it because the truth is her detective's mind is flooded with questions.

"Where have you been?" she demands gently, reaching a hand up to trace the stubble that's beginning to darken his jaw, loving the rasp of it against the pads of her fingers.

Castle's blue eyes darken and his mouth thins, and she sees a myriad of emotions race across his handsome face before he eventually replies.

"On the other side of the world," he murmurs softly in the end. "In a prison as beautiful and peaceful as it was inescapable."

Kate frowns.

"Well that's cryptic," she scolds him, shifting against his side until she's covering him more fully, her head propped up on her folded hands. "You know I wondered and I searched for you _every _day, Rick. And now I need the full story every bit as much as _you_ would," she tells him.

The writer nods, "I know. I'll tell you everything Kate – it's just . . . "

"Just what?"

He huffs out an almost bitter laugh.

"It's kind of fantastical," he replies. "I lived through it all and yet now that I'm home . . ." his eyes drift from hers and she watches as his gaze travels over every part of his bedroom, ". . . it almost doesn't feel real – that time away."

"Tell me," she insists, her fingers tightening on his jaw, eyes burning into his. "Tell me everything. Where you've been, and especially how all of this involves your father, Castle?"

His gaze rests on her face. "He's CIA," he says seriously. "Career CIA, Kate. It's the reason he stepped out of my mother's world as quickly as he entered it. It's the reason he's watched us from afar my entire life. He was trying to protect the both of us by keeping the two people he loved as far removed from him as possible."

Kate's mouth drops open a little, but she's not surprised, not really. Castle's 'Heat Lost' manuscript had already warned her about Valez' deal for CIA protection, but now it seems . . .

"Oh God," she says quietly, understanding suddenly lighting up the green in her eyes. "He was working with Valez wasn't he?"

Castle nods. "His 'official' CIA handler no less, the senior agent in charge of the whole operation when he stumbles over the revenge plot Valez is cooking up for the murder of his wife and children. Slaughter was killed before my father could act to prevent it, but once he uncovered who was next on the hit-list – namely me, in order to punish you, he had to step in."

Beckett nods thoughtfully.

"So you. . . you went with him," she says neutrally.

Castle looks completely horrified.

"Hell no-" he says with anger, his tone appalled. "He kidnapped me Kate - how can you think . . ." He takes a steadying breath. "One moment it's January 9th and I'm on a sidewalk in New York, giving you a little space so you can talk to your father – and the next its three days later, and I'm waking up in a strange room in a villa on a tiny Greek island worlds away. I still can't recall _anything_ in between."

"Greece?" He'd told her it was fantastic and she doesn't want to sound unbelieving but really? Greece?

Her partner nods. "A CIA safe house," he explains. "'Serifopoula', I believe that's what the island is called. Not that he ever told me, but there was a non-English speaking housekeeper 'Dianthe' and though I couldn't understand more than about three words she said – she mentioned it a few times. It's tiny, ten miles from the nearest inhabited island, and fifty from the mainland. A villa and a tiny stone cottage, cliffs and beaches – that's really all that's there. Gabor would miraculously come and go and the rest of the time I was all alone save the housekeeper. Sometimes he'd be gone for weeks Kate, and until the night we had to escape it I never did figure out how he was doing it – I mean I guessed he had a boat or something, but I couldn't find it, and believe me I looked."

Kate immediately latches onto the key phrase. "_Escape it?_"

Castle surprises her by shrugging.

"Yeah it was actually kind of crazy Kate. Far crazier even than anything I've put Nikki through in my books. The island was ambushed by some sort of 'hit-team' and we had to vacate it fast. We swam off-shore in the dead of night and then made it back onto the island to retrieve my manuscript via a sea-cave entrance. As it turned out there was a series of caves and tunnels beneath the island that you would never have guessed were there. Gabor got the book and we escaped together via speedboat, heading for a seaplane Gabor had anchored a few miles from shore and everything is going well until we hear the whine of another boat engine behind us and we realize that we're being hunted down. Long story short - we make it out, but barely and only after a rather interesting game of three way chicken between the plane and two speedboats, one of which I was driving. Oh and I got shot – just a graze really on my arm, but it was scarily close there in the end."

Now Beckett's mouth truly does drop open, mainly because her partner's voice is so matter of fact and without the glee in it she would have expected.

"But why risk going back for the book?" She asks. "In fact why did you even have to write it in the first place Castle – why couldn't your father just let us know covertly that you were safe?"

Castle sighs.

"He was trying to do his job Kate – complete his designated assignment, but still protect you for me. Valez had made a deal with the Agency. They look the other way on his gang's drug smuggling, and he hands over the names of all the other major Mexican cartel leaders as well as details of their drug shipments. The CIA jumped at the deal because it's literally huge – we're talking millions upon millions of dollars worth of cocaine taken off of the streets. And here is where my father is caught right in the middle. His assignment is to protect and liaise with Valez – but Valez is planning on emotionally destroying you by assassinating me, and how can Gabor allow that? I'm his secret only child. So instead he removes me from harm, stashes me somewhere I can't escape from and convinces Valez that the deed is done – that I'm dead. Then he suggests to him that _not_ knowing what has happened to me will be far harder on you. You'll have lost me – but you'll still have hope. A hope Valez can then relish the thought of destroying at anytime he chooses by simply revealing the 'truth' of my demise. It was a plan patched together on the fly for sure – and while my father struggled to serve two agendas – but it worked Kate. And it bought the both of you time."

The brunette shakes her head.

"I still don't see why your father couldn't have revealed to me that you were safe? Or told Alexis? Or your mother? Castle, for five months we all had to battle the awful 'not-knowing' of what had happened to you every single day!" The recent pain is ragged in her voice as it catches briefly on the last word.

So the writer strokes his hand down the side of her face, his fingers reverent and soothing.

"Valez was watching you," he explains gently. "All of you. The only reason he was delaying your execution Kate was to enjoy watching you suffer daily. If _any_ of you had known I was safe – if you'd slipped up and dropped the facade of grief – even for a moment - it would have meant your life Kate. And there would have been nothing more Gabor could do to protect you."

Beckett swallows as she tries to digest the awful truth of it.

"So he saved you, and he tried to protect me," she says softly.

Castle nods. "And the manuscript became a covert way to warn you, a way for you to take back control of your destiny and remove the threat posed by Valez for yourself. Even the CIA couldn't be trusted Kate, or the NYPD. Too much kept happening with Gabor's assignment, too many things kept going wrong on his end. Together we decided only you; Gates, Ryan and Esposito could be trusted."

Kate frowns. "So whoever came after you both on the island then – you mean to say they were CIA too?"

Castle nods again.

"It's what my father believes, that an enemy in the Agency tried to take him out, perhaps to take over his assignment. A corrupt operative could make fortune getting into bed with Valez."

"And you _completely_ trust him?"

The writer smiles reassuringly, "With _both_ of our lives – yes baby I do."

And it hits her then, how late it is for her to be questioning.

"I'm sorry," she says quickly. "I can't believe I even asked you that. I mean the man almost died yesterday sacrificing himself to save me. And I know he must have had to prove himself to you Rick – I know you wouldn't have come to trust in him easily."

The truth of her statement is written on Castle's face, as is the respect and affection she can see he's developed for the man who fathered him.

"Sleep," she whispers, deciding she's learned enough for now as she snuggles more fully into his arms. "We should try and sleep Castle, and in the morning we can pick this all up again. Figure out how to end it."

The writer hums contentedly.

"Together," he murmurs, pulling her even more tightly against him. "Together."

* * *

When he wakes up it's through layers of haze-inducing medication that still somehow can't manage to dull the awful throbbing evident in his midsection, but Richard Gabor smiles with his eyes still closed anyway – he didn't die then, and that's truly something.

Prying open heavy eyelids the CIA operative assesses his surroundings on auto-pilot, the movement of his eyes coming to a screeching halt when they alight on the slender woman with the flame-colored hair who sleeps so awkwardly in a chair across the room from him.

_Martha? Martha is that really you?_

He wants to sit up; he wants call out to her. But he's suddenly frozen instead. Filled up with so much emotion in the seconds he realizes who is with him - that for the first time in a long time Gabor doesn't know what to do with any of it.

She is the last person he would ever have expected to be here waiting on him.

She is the person in his secret heart he would have wanted most to see.

He keeps blinking almost expecting her to vanish – part of him not daring to believe she is actually real.

Forty years ago he gave up his heart's desire – damn it feels so strange to suddenly be granted it.

Even in her slumber he reads the anxiety evident on her face, knows that her rest isn't untroubled or easy and it truly pains him. He maps her features with greedy eyes, thinking back on the last time he actually – with his own eyes – not through footage, got to simply gaze at her – it must have been Richard's graduation from University.

She was twenty years younger then, and though of course he's seen how gracefully she's aged through surveillance footage, the truth is he avoided actually being close enough to see her with own eyes after that day, because he was deathly afraid of his ability to remain away from her.

He'd been so proud of both of them that sunny summer afternoon, both his intelligent and handsome grown son, and his beautiful long-lost love. He vividly recalls how deeply he'd longed to hold her again then, to thank her for raising their child all alone but so seemingly successfully. Sure Richard had proven to be a handful, and he'd been trouble going through school, but in the end here he was not only getting his degree but already a published author of a best-selling book.

It had taken everything within Gabor to just witness the event from the fringes that day, and then turn around and go before there was any chance he might be seen by her.

And God, how he's hated with desperate passion the men that she's married, even as he prayed that they'd be able to make her happy.

He admits he's selfishly rejoiced his was the only child she ever carried.

She stirs in her sleep, suddenly waking, before she pushes herself upright as she remembers where she is, and he feels giddy when her sleepy gorgeous eyes connect with him. Then he ruefully remembers she's an actress as Martha schools her features trying to remain inscrutable to him, but he smiles inwardly and isn't fooled by it, because her fingers where they twist in her lap are softly trembling.

She is still every bit as beautiful to him as she was the day he first saw her, even the darkening bruise that mars her face can't detract from it.

"Martha," he says gently, unable to contain the easy smile of pure joy that transforms his rugged face.

It seems to reassure her, to settle something within her about her presence here, and so the actress pushes to her feet and crosses the short distance to the operative's hospital bed.

He can't stop the hand he opens in invitation, but she doesn't take it. Instead she stops close enough that he can stare up mesmerized into her face, but he cannot reach to touch her.

"Richard?" She asks, and he understands from her inflection that this is a question, that she doesn't quite trust that this is what she should actually call him.

He nods. He's gone by other names, and legally 'Richard' is his middle one, but it's the name he gave her, the name she gave their son – and that makes it who he is.

"How . . . how are you feeling?" She asks.

He smiles, lopsidedly and knows her small intact of air is because he's reminding her of her son.

"Surprised to be alive," he replies, reaching out his hand again. "And more than surprised to see you," he adds.

This time she takes it, and though it costs him what little strength he has he tugs her a little towards him, until Martha takes the hint and seats herself awkwardly on the very edge of his bed, her troubled eyes dropping from his face and staring benignly at the dull beige blanket that is covering him instead.

"But I'm incredibly happy that you're here," he murmurs, his fingers tightening on her slender digits.

Her eyes dart to his at this.

"You are?"

He nods. "Most definitely."

"Oh."

They fall silent just staring at each other, until a small smile crinkles the corners of Martha's mouth and Gabor senses something like relief sweep through her.

"Richard must have told you I would be," he says, inclining an eyebrow.

Martha blushes as she nods.

"He did seem very certain you would like me to be here if you woke up," she answers honestly.

Gabor smiles wider.

"Our son is well aware of how I feel about you, about the memory of you. I think our talks about it helped him Martha. That perhaps they healed something – answered something deep within him. He's a remarkable person I've found, talented and driven, charming, intelligent - a credit to you," he offers her earnestly, knowing that he's saying nothing she doesn't already understand, but wanting to show her that he sees it just the same.

"He's a lot like you, I've always sensed it," she replies. "He looks like you, he smiles like you, laughs like you – and that fierce mind of his – that I think is _all_ you, Richard. The charm and ease and wit – well those I'll continue to claim he got from me."

They both laugh, although the movement causes Gabor instant regret as pain lances though his mid-section like a red-hot poker and he pales terribly, sweat beading instantly at his temples.

It scares her.

"You're in pain, let me call someone. I'm sorry I was supposed to let them know the instant you were awake," she apologizes. She goes to let go of the operative's hand but with a strength that surprises him considering his condition, Gabor holds on.

"A moment more," he pleads, and Martha is astounded by the fear on his still handsome face – fear that she's about to leave him alone, and that now he's awake she might not come back again.

"I wasn't going to go," she explains softly. "Just get someone to take a look at you, make sure you aren't in any needless pain. Take it easy please – you almost died yesterday."

"Still," he says quietly, "Just a moment, please-"

"Okay," she agrees, relenting.

Martha sits back down and as his frantic grip lets up she lets her fingers just toy with his.

"Thank you," she whispers after a long moment.

Gabor looks at her confused.

"For saving him," she clarifies.

Oh.

"He's my son," he replies. "I had to protect him."

"Thank you," she says again.

Gabor manages to pull her fingers to his lips; and he brushes his mouth over them reverently. There is so much still to say between them, so may explanations he may never fully be able to make, but he can't contain these words – he simply has to grab this chance to say them.

"No thanks ever needed. I love him," he tells her, before he takes as deep a breath as he can manage and just blurts it out. " Just as I still love you."


	34. Chapter 34

**A/N: ***SPOILER*** at the bottom.  
**

* * *

**Chapter Thirty Four: **So heartless, so selfish, so in darkness.

* * *

Castle gets off the phone with his mother unable to keep the smile off of his face.

"Is everything okay?" Kate asks him as she emerges from the en-suite, her hair a mass of still damp curls that she's busy toweling dry as she speaks to him; and she looks so radiant this morning that she steals away anything he was about to say in reply and he's just got to hold her.

Crossing over the scant fifteen feet between them he tugs her into his arms and buries his face against her neck breathing deeply and feeling his heart practically squealing in delight.

_It's so good – so very, very good to be home._

"Castle?"

"Better than okay," he mumbles against her skin, before he kisses her neck slowly, happy, just so very happy as she sighs, relaxing against him.

"Better? Your father is improving faster than the doctor's thought he might then?" she asks him.

He plants a final caress against her jaw line before he moves so that he can actually look at her, smiling down into her gorgeous face he nods briefly.

"My mother says he's awake and talking-"He stops suddenly and just grins broadly, his eyes dancing with something Beckett's never seen before.

"What? What is it?" she asks curiously, her palms coming up to rest against his chest.

He shrugs.

"Just the way mother was on the phone – all giddy and kind of dazed, talking about my father. I've never had that before Kate. I've never seen her this way, never even been able to picture _both_ of them – let alone be able to picture them together," he explains.

Kate smiles back warmly.

"It must be a little strange for you," she says.

"It is," he answers. "But Kate its _good_ strange, really _good s_trange, and that's - unexpected."

Stretching up on her toes she kisses him just because she has too. Because the shy happiness and little-boy vulnerability in his eyes as he speaks about finally knowing each of his parents is completely adorable. Regardless of all he's ever said about it, all the dismissal's he's made in the past – this is a part of his own story Kate believes he's always needed – and that he has it now makes her truly glad.

"I really wish I could take you back to bed," he whispers into her mouth.

Yeah, she wishes it to, can already feel the heat building in her body in anticipation – but they've had their momentary respite, and now they have work they simply _must _do.

"Let's put this case to bed first, Castle," she says reluctantly as she forces herself to pull back from him, but he can hear the slight plea in her voice. She really needs this to be over with now – finished and behind them so that they can be 'clouds-free' happy again.

Sighing he nods agreeing with her.

"Yeah okay," he says softly. "Back into the fray it is then."

* * *

Esposito exits Interrogation Room #2 with his partner on his heels and a scowl growing on his handsome face like a darkening thundercloud. J.T happens to be passing and the sight of Espo's face is enough for the tall uniformed cop to instantly swallow back the greeting he was about to utter to them. His dark eyes flash quickly over to Ryan who smiles a quick silent reply before he glances covertly over at Javi and shakes his head.

With a brief nod, J.T hurries to make himself scarce.

"Javi-"

Esposito spins and barely manages to pull his fist up short of punching it into the precinct's drywall, the anger rolling off of him in waves. He spins again and his back connects with a thunk against the wall instead.

"Evil fucking bitch-"he murmurs under his breath.

Ryan sympathizes – feeling for his partner who'd voluntarily taken the lead in their joint interrogation of Karpowski, both late last night and again first thing this morning, and both of those sessions have so far gotten them precisely nowhere.

"Javi-"

"How can she do that Kevin? How can she be so fucking ice-cold?"

Ryan sighs loudly.

"Damned if I know bro, but regardless you know we have to go back in there and we have to find a way to break her," he says calmly.

Esposito's dark eyes dart to his and the Hispanic detective nods slowly.

"Yeah I know," he admits wearily. "It's just I haven't wanted to hurt someone _so_ badly in a long time. She's just so shuttered, so completely blinkered and she's one of us – one of us . . . "Javier trails off, swallowing back his frustrations with difficulty. "I just want to wring the information out of her, and then I want to lock her up and throw away the key."

Beckett's voice breaks suddenly over them.

"I take it things aren't going so well," she says in greeting – in lieu of the more traditional 'good morning'.

Both her partner's instantly look guilty because they've gotten nowhere and so Kate's quick to try and lighten the situation. She smiles a commiserating smile and then deliberately lets her face relax, let's the boys see how she can face anything now – because Castle is once again beside her.

Her quiet joy, the peace that softly radiates from her eyes has the desired effect on Ryan and Esposito. Kate can almost see the tense set of their shoulders relaxing and as Castle comes up behind her and she feels the warmth of him against her back a quiet determination settles comfortably inside her. Karpowski _is_ going to give them what they need – somehow, someway - and there's an end to it.

"So fill us in," she directs easily.

Esposito's jaw tightens perceptively again, and so it's Ryan who speaks for them.

"She's giving us nothing boss. And the weirdest part is that she hasn't even lawyered up yet."

Kate's eyebrows climb skywards.

"She hasn't?"

Ryan shakes his head, clearly perturbed.

"That is weird," Castle interjects. "I mean it's not like a cop doesn't know how best to play the system, so if she isn't talking and wanting to cut some sort of deal – why wouldn't she exercise that right?"

Ryan and Esposito simply shrug, but Beckett looks thoughtful.

"She's waiting on him," she says quietly, almost to herself.

Castle latches onto her comment though – immediately.

"Valez? You think Karpowski's stringing out her own interrogation in order to buy time for Valez to do something?"

Kate nods.

"Time to do what? He's still out of it in the hospital?"

Beckett shakes her head, "I'm not sure – maybe just the time to wake up. Once he's conscious he'll have to be arrested formally and he'll learn that she's been arrested-"

Horror floods Castle's vibrant eyes.

"He'll call his lawyer, who'll contact the CIA . . . "he says shakily.

". . . and the CIA will stake their claim on him. And who knows Castle - maybe they'll protect her too," Kate finishes.

Esposito pushes back off the wall again, fury raging in his face again. "We need to break that bitch and now."

Castle's hand is heavy and firm on Javier's arm as he restrains him.

"Bro – let go of me."

The writer shakes his head.

"Wait," he says firmly, before he turns to Kate. "I need you to let me in there," he says firmly.

Kate's brow wrinkles in confusion.

"Castle? You want us to question her? I thought you said you wanted Espo and Ryan to handle Karpowski's interrogation?" she asks quietly.

Shooting a stern look at Esposito that clearly states 'stay-there', Castle releases his vice like grip on the detective's arm and shoos Kate a little way down the corridor away from her partners.

"What is it?" she asks urgently as he turns her to face him.

"I need you to let _me_ in there," he says again. "But _just_ me," he adds.

Beckett shakes her head. "Castle, you can accompany me as you have before – but you aren't a cop, you can't interrogate her one on one."

Her lover's eyes are both ice-cold as he looks at her and supremely confident, a down right jarring combination for Kate to see on his beloved face.

"I'm asking you to trust me," he replies.

"Castle-"

"Trust me," he reiterates. "She won't talk to the boys – she's already made that pretty plain. And she hates you Kate – hell yesterday she tried to kill you, and if you're right and she's trying to buy some time for Valez to wheedle their way out of this, then we have to find someone she'll talk to and fast."

Beckett bites her lip.

"And you think that's you?" she asks somewhat skeptically.

Castle nods. "Not think," he replies. "I _know_. Kate, I know more about this plot than virtually anyone save Gabor. I mean you've had the cliff-notes version for sure - but I've lived _every_ moment of the last five months with all this. And in order to write 'Heat Lost' I learned exactly what the CIA has been deliberately over-looking for Valez, plus I know Karpowski also. I know where she's vulnerable and I realize now that she can't show it to the rest of you. That's why it has to be me - I can do this baby – I _can _break her for you."

His eyes hold no doubts – not a one, and although a part of Beckett thinks this request is crazy, the bottom line is that she does trust his ability to do this. She trusts him implicitly, with everything, and he wouldn't ask this of her if he wasn't completely sure. But still . . .

"Kate, I _need_ to do this - please."

"Okay," she agrees, finally. "Okay, Rick. Do it."

* * *

The boys are stunned when she tells them the plan, but after searching glances they wisely say nothing, they just gather with her in the observation room for moral support and together the three partners prepare to watch Castle do his thing.

* * *

Karpowski has the good grace to look a little shocked when Castle enters Interrogation #2 unaccompanied, but then her eyes drop from his and she resumes her previous impassive observation of the worn table top in front of her.

Seating himself quickly and without fanfare Castle feels his heart beating faster as he prepares to do alone what he's only ever participated in. But the elevated thumping in his chest is all adrenaline and excitement as he stares his quarry down, because he wasn't lying to the others, and he isn't fooling himself here.

He just knows he's got this.

And when he remains silent long enough and Karpowski eventually raises her dark eyes to meet his, the writer smiles slowly and deliberately at her, reveling in the moment when panic flashes across her tired features for a moment and he suspects Karpowski realizes it too.

"Where's Beckett?" she spits at him?

Castle raises an eyebrow and nods towards the mirror.

"Exactly where you'd think," he responds evenly.

The disgraced detective tries for a nonchalant smirk but fails.

"Can't face me huh?" she says acidly.

Castle shakes his head.

"Actually I'm the one who asked her to step away," he replies.

Karpowski narrows her eyes in surprise.

"Why?"

"Because you're just wasting time here anyway Rose. You know it, we know it. Still I figured since I was the calmest one out there I'd give you one more chance to do what's right."

Ice in her tone she says, "What's right would be that yesterday I'd have succeeded and Beckett would have died."

She's trying to make him angry, and though inside he's fuming - outwardly the author remains gentile and impassive - no trace of his true emotion colors his reply.

"Your sister was a victim Rose - we both know that. And there is no disputing that her children were innocent too. What we disagree on here is the people responsible for their deaths - the people that _should_ be held accountable for this."

"You, Slaughter and Beckett did this."

Castle shakes his head and leans across the table towards her.

"And that's where you're wrong Karpowski. And much as you seem hell bent on protecting him - if you ask me - Cesar Valez is where the blame for those deaths ultimately lies."

Rose laughs at him.

"Cesar loved my sister. He loved his children. He's acted purely to avenge his family."

"I suppose he told you this," Castle asks her.

Karpowski nods, crosses her arms defiantly.

* * *

In the observation room Esposito looks concerned as he leans towards Beckett, attracting her attention.

"Where is he going with this?" he stage whispers.

Kate shrugs helplessly, "I'm sure he knows," she says quietly back, before she returns her attention once more to Castle and Karpowski.

* * *

Castle knows exactly where he's going, and though it kills him he manages to look at Karpowski with compassion.

"I hate to break it to you Rose, but he's a drug dealer. He sells drugs to kids, and he ruins lives and do you think if your nieces and nephew had lived that they wouldn't ultimately have been sucked into that life too?"

Still nothing - okay then.

"Oh wait - I get it. You think the CIA is going to protect him? And you? Is that your play here? Please, you shot their agent in charge yesterday, so if you're waiting on protection coming - it'll be a very _long_ wait I can assure you."

And this gets him the reaction he's been looking for, Karpowski's dark eyes widen.

"The masked man who protected Beckett - he was . . ." she whispers.

Castle nods, and for emphasis he smiles, and he makes sure its smugly.

"Oh Karpowski," he says very softly, leaning across the table with his fingertips deliberately twitching gleefully. "Worse than that - so much worse. I mean thankfully he survived, that's something in your favor at least - but who do you think put the NYPD onto Slaughter's death being a murder in the first place? Who do you suppose acted five months ago to protect me?"

Karpowski just shakes her head softly, disbelief in her eyes.

"You're bluffing," she replies, her mouth thinning in contempt. "You know nothing about the deal Cesar has with the Agency," she retorts, ignoring his silence. "And Beckett's savior is more likely to be someone you hired to protect her. You're fishing Castle - making up a story just to mess with me. It isn't going to work."

Castle stops smiling then and his expression grows serious.

"Oh but it is Rose," he says calmly. "It's why you'll give me what I need to convict Valez of the murder of Detective Ethan Slaughter - because that's the only way to keep him safely out of the CIA's hands now. The only way to protect him from being handed over to the very cartel's he's been ratting on so deliberately. Because you see I'm the one with the control here Karpowski. I'm the one pulling all the strings with the Agency."

"You? Pfftt, how?" The disgraced detective spews at him.

Once more, Rick grins convincingly, knowing he _must_ sell this to her completely, "Because that masked man you almost killed isn't only a CIA operative," he tells her. "He's the one tasked with directing all of the CIA's drug enforcement operations, but what you really need to know here - is that he has a very particular attachment to me."

"Why you?" she asks, and it's the tiny trace of creeping fear into those two syllables that tells Castle he'll soon be getting his victory.

So he smiles ever more broadly.

"Because I'm his family," he answers, loving it when she pales appropriately. "In fact, I'm his son."

* * *

**SPOILER BELOW:**

* * *

*****Two words - James Brolin! Isn't that frackkin awesome and can't you just picture it?*****


	35. Chapter 35

**This was supposed to be the final chapter, but I couldn't fit everything into only one without it getting weird on me, so there will be one more, and then we will only have an epilogue left to go.**

* * *

**Chapter Thirty Five: **I could do a lot of things, but I could never be without you.

* * *

"But you, you don't know _who_ your father is." Karpowski throws back at him harshly – she clearly intends it to sound mean - derogatory. "Everyone knows that Castle – _everyone_."

It doesn't faze the writer in the slightest, because it's nothing he hasn't had thrown at him a hundred times before when he was a child. And things are different now – because he finally has the right answer.

"My father is a spy. Spies have to remain unknown," he responds calmly.

The rogue detective scans his face as if she's looking for the lie, the 'tell' – but of course there _is_ nothing but the absolute truth there for her to find.

Castle smirks. Karpowski is clearly going for brash and unconcerned with her word choices, but her pale sweating face and vaguely trembling extremities are a dead give away.

He's got her. Oh, he's got her, and he knows it.

Relief – premature though it may be, washes through him uncontained for just an instant. Gabor is going to recover, he's back home, Valez is going down, and Kate is safe again. All these realizations flow through his mind unbidden and quicken his pulse, and Castle feels so free in this moment that he could truly laugh out loud with it; instead he deliberately paints his most compassionate expression on over the joy he feels - and forces himself to lean forward again in the hard plastic chair.

"Rose, listen to me," he says gently, "I get it." He tilts his head towards the room's mirrored rear wall, "We all get it. You lost someone you loved – and you're angry. You wanted someone to pay-"He pauses, swallows down his natural response to anyone pointing the finger at the woman he loves. "Even Kate understands this," he continues in the same measured tone. "And trust me; no-one is thinking that you don't have a _right_ to that anger."

Reaching across the interrogation room table he hesitates for only the smallest moment before he covers her fisted hands with his, his warm, strong fingers stilling the faint shaking.

"But you're a cop," he states plainly. "And as a cop you know that no-one, _no-one_ has the right to take the law into their own hands. And drug dealers like Valez have no place on our streets. If Cesar Valez wasn't what he is – _none _of this would have happened to begin with. Because he's the very first domino Karpowski, and as such he bears the full weight of what his choice of life-style brought upon himself and his family. If you need a place to lay the blame – you need to start here."

Karpowski bows her head, but remains silent – so Castle continues.

"My father, the CIA, the NYPD – the full force of them _will_ be brought to bear here. With or without you, this vendetta Valez birthed is _finished_. So _please_ Karpowski, for yourself – for those that love and care about you - for one last moment stop and be a _cop_ again and do the right thing here. Please give us what we need to end this before the CIA outs Valez to the cartels - so that as much as possible we can protect you."

Her eyes fly to his face as he says this, shock and disbelief, anger, fear, a myriad of emotions run the gamut across her pale face. Her voice is a thin, reedy thing when she goes to reply.

"_What?_ What are you saying?"

Castle looks suitably grim.

"The CIA will not protect him. Or you. But my father will ensure his operatives clean up their mess Rose – you can be assured of that."

Staring at him in horror she swallows hard.

"Your father – he'll . . . "

Castle nods, he can tell she's gone exactly where he wanted to steer her inside her head, so he smiles almost tremulously, his vivid blue eyes full of very convincing apologies – his mother would be so proud. He rubs her cold hands gently, as if he's only trying to be reassuring.

"He will protect me, and by extension Kate at all costs – I promise you that. And if the only way he can remove Valez as a threat to us is by outing him as the snitch to the Mexican cartels . . . "he trails off, leaves the implication hanging in the somewhat claustrophobic air.

Karpowski looks suitably shaken, all hint of fake brash confidence long gone. She's silent for a long time and Castle does nothing to push her, he just keeps his gaze on her face so that every time her dark eyes dart his way she sees him silent, calm and watching.

"Cesar will be killed," she whispers in the end. "Along with anyone associated with him – you must know that. The cartels – they'll show no mercy."

Lips thin and expression hard Castle replies, "Better him than me, than Kate."

He let's that sink in – before once more offering Karpowski the 'out'.

"If he's safely in jail on murder charges there is no need for it to come to that." The writer takes back his hands, pushing back from the table and getting to his feet he turns his back on Karpowski, giving her the moment some six sense is telling him she needs.

He knows his partners are still observing from the other side of the glass and he's tempted to wink at them but he restrains himself – limits it to a glance at the mirror and the faintest of small smiles.

Pacing the cramped space he continues waiting.

"Castle?"

He returns to his seat when called.

"Yeah-"

Taking a deep breath Karpowski fixes him with a steady gaze that reveals her ultimate decision has been made.

"My sister, Maria – she truly loved Cesar," she begins.

Castle says nothing.

"She was devoted to him, and I know she'd ask me to protect him now. He isn't all bad," she pleads.

"Rose-"

"So I'll give you what you need, Castle. The murder weapon, the burner phone that summoned Slaughter to that storage facility, enough evidence to tie Valez to both – even an eye-witness . . . "

Castle leaps on the last one.

"There's an eye witness? To Slaughter's assassination?" he clarifies.

Karpowski nods, and as her pale cheeks flood hotly with shame it tells him exactly who.

"You were there that day?" he bites out around his absolute overwhelming disgust that one cop could ever willingly watch another one die.

She nods, eyes darting away from his face before she forces herself to look back at him.

"I was. I wanted to see him pay," she admits as defiantly as she still can.

"Did it help?" Castle snarls, unable in the moment to hide his outrage.

Roselyn shakes her head at it, and the pain in her gaze says it all really.

"No,"she replies honestly. "Nothing can ever bring Maria or her children back to us. Nothing makes the pain go away. But maybe by protecting Cesar's life . . . it's all I can still do for Maria," she explains. "So I will do what you ask - only because I must."

"The gun, and the phone – I take it these are in your possession?" he asks.

Again Karpowski nods. "He gave them to me – trophies," she explains blandly with a small shrug of her thin shoulders. "You get me a fair deal, and you take a lethal injection off of the table for Cesar – and you get them both, plus my testimony."

_Good guys win._

"Thank you," he says as genuinely as he can.

"I'm not doing this for you," she bites back.

_Still._

The writer waits until the distraught detective looks at him for what he suspects is the final time.

"Thank you anyway."

Castle leaves the interrogation room then, pulling the door shut behind him quietly and feeling both triumphant, yet strangely weary as he leans his back on it thinking.

He's not alone long.

Kate, Esposito and Ryan emerge from the observation room with muted smiles on all their faces, and Kate immediately pushes herself into his arms.

"You did it, Rick." She congratulates him.

He plants a gentle kiss in her hair, squeezes her tightly – doesn't say he told her so. Well not until Esposito claps him loudly on the back while Ryan just beams at him quietly. Then he shakes off the strange momentary melancholy – too much empathy for Karpowski maybe – and he grins.

"Yeah I got her," he agrees, and the relief colours his voice as much as it leaks all over his face.

He looks down into Beckett's beautiful eyes.

"It's over baby," he reassures her.

But in reality, that's only partially true.

* * *

"Are you sure it's okay for me to do this?"

Alexis looks searchingly at her grandmother's face, noting the dark shadows written by a lack of sleep beneath the actress's bright blue eyes. The night-time vigil has worn the woman out – clearly, and yet despite that those same blue eyes are sparkling and there is a truly bewitching smile dancing on her lips.

Martha nods enthusiastically.

"But of course, darling. He's sleeping again at the moment, and besides I need to go and get some sleep just for a few hours – freshen up," she says, running a thin hand self-consciously through her slightly disheveled hair. "Your father is tied up with Kate at the precinct trying to put this all behind us – and I'd honestly feel better knowing that he isn't going to wake up all alone."

The amount of feeling in her grandmother's voice momentarily steals away anything Alexis can find to say. All the young woman knows for sure is that suddenly her request to visit her 'grandfather' carries a lot more importance. Martha is speaking about what she wants for him, and Alexis is old enough and wise enough to know this says an awful lot.

She knows her Dad has formed a close attachment to the man also.

And that thought settles it – settles her. She's the only free member of the family at this moment – she has a duty then to stay, surely. To be here for him - both if needs be _and_ on principal, seeing as it's apparent he's finally managed to be there for all of them.

Martha sees her through the security checkpoint at the start of the hallway to ICU. Captain Gates has arranged for two burly uniforms belonging to the 12th Precinct 'just in case', they give her the once over before ushering her through and once she's said her goodbye's to Martha, Alexis wanders the sterile expanse of corridor until she reaches his room.

Richard Gabor. The grandfather she's never met.

Taking a deep breath to steady the sudden eruption of butterflies in her stomach, Alexis straightens her spine and then quietly pushes open the door, slipping inside like a thief.

Sunshine streams brightly through the window on the far side of the private room, immediately getting in her eyes and causing her to sneeze - even though she tries in vain to stifle it. Dammit, not the introduction she needs, and then she waits on tender-hooks to see if the occupant of the bed has been disturbed.

Thankfully there is nothing. No movement, no voice, Richard Gabor sleeps peacefully on.

Alexis heaves a small sigh of relief, and forces herself to approach the bed – the simple posy of flowers she's been clutching for ages now suddenly feeling slightly ridiculous in her slender fingers.

Studying the sleeping man's slack face the young woman can't help but look for signs of her father's relationship to him, and it doesn't take her all that long to find them. The strong jaw line, the shape of Gabor's nose – the elements that went into forming Richard Castle are all so blatantly there. Alexis smiles, unable to help it – the fact that she can so plainly 'see' her father in the older man lying so quietly before her, well it makes what she already _knows _is true – infinitely more real.

This really is her Dad's father. Her Gram's lost love. The missing puzzle piece of her own history who she's wondered about since she was old enough to understand he was a mystery.

Alexis takes another step closer, feels a part of her instinctively wanting to hold the slumbering spy's hand, seeking a connection. But then her gaze drifts again to the wilting posy of violets caught within her fingers and she realizes she actually _wants_ to have them to give him.

Suddenly the symbolism of them is all too important.

As silly and childish as maybe they are – they're her gift to this mysterious man to tell him 'thank-you for giving me my father back', and she needs to find some water and a vase or something quick so that she can save them.

Scanning the hospital room with a critical eye the young red-head can't see anything that could possibly be used to hold them, but she does spy the door to an en-suite bathroom in the farthest corner of the space. Maybe the posy's salvation lies in there?

Stepping lightly, Alexis keeps her footfalls as quiet as she can as she makes her way across the squeaky, highly polished linoleum floor. Ducking into the bathroom she pushes the door almost completely closed behind her as she prepares to ransack the room if necessary, but only seconds later as she's peering into a cupboard that looks promising - she hears the main door to Gabor's room swing open once more. Pushing herself up from a crouch, Alexis is about to exit the bathroom and announce her presence to whichever ICU nurse or doctor who's come to check-in on Gabor's progress, when she pauses with her fingers on the doorknob instead, suddenly and for no reason that's immediately apparent to her strangely afraid.

Fear trickles through her - fills her up, sweat beads and rolls down her spine. Some weird innate sense of impending danger that she's never felt the like of before and could not begin to describe keeps Alexis for the moment motionless - her ears straining to pick up any auditory clues from beyond the partially open bathroom door.

Alexis hears a man's voice, a rustling sound as if Gabor's being shaken awake - and then . . .

"Hello boss." The voice is generic, soft and unremarkable.

Gabor's voice is distinctive - like her father's, as he growls out a weak reply.

"You! Of course it _had_ to be."

Then her grandfather chuckles hoarsely, but it's an unhappy awful sound - full of irony, before he says, "I should have known."


	36. Chapter 36

**This is the final update bar the epilogue. I'm sad and I'm elated to be to be at the end. Oh and I hope to God everyone remembers this guy - my CIA bad seed  
**

* * *

**Chapter Thirty Six: **Dirty little freak, but this is how we bleed.

* * *

_"You! Of course it __had__ to be."_

_Then her grandfather chuckles hoarsely, but it's an unhappy, awful sound - full of irony, before he says, "I should have known."_

* * *

Gulping, Alexis realizes this doesn't sound good at all and it freezes her, roots her mutely to the spot for a moment until an idea dawns on her and she tugs her phone free of her pocket frantically. Opening the device's recording app she holds the phone to the gap between the door and the frame, and starts it listening.

* * *

Richard Gabor studies the deceptively passive face of his adversary wearily. He really feels like he should have guessed this, should have foreseen that from the finite number of suspects he had – this would be the operative who would betray him.

Because it's always the most unlikely one isn't it? Both in the fictional world of his son's best-selling books, and in the real spy game. It's always the last person you'd suspect because transparency gets you killed.

He knows this, he lives it. It's been his motto since forever.

Blue eyes glittering bitterly with the sting of betrayal, the older operative eyes his protégé with a disgust that's not entirely directed outwardly. He's molded this guy, taught him, and trusted him – and therefore he knows that also means he's responsible.

"And yet you look surprised to see me boss." Agent Gray says somewhat smugly, his eyes dancing with a maliciousness Gabor has never seen in them before. "I confess I've spent the last couple of weeks since you've been back in the country with Castle, just waiting for you to come after me."

Gabor huffs out a disbelieving bark of laughter and barely manages to conceal the pain that it causes him.

"You'd never sit around and _wait_ for someone to come after you, Gray. It's just not your style. And besides, we both know that you remember every single last thing I've ever taught you, including that offense is always better than defense."

The younger man smiles evenly at that, tilting his head in acknowledgement.

"Call it a last mark of respect for you then," he says. "A last, shall we say 'chance'? No matter how miniscule an offering it was."

Gabor smiles but it's grimly.

"I highly doubt it was that. More likely a perverse need to see if I was smart enough to figure it out - that you were the one who'd gone into business for yourself with Cesar Valez. And I'm willing to bet it was also you who shot me down in Mexico? A team that _you_ were leading who came after us on the island?"

Agent Gray nods slowly, silently agreeing that he's responsible for all of these offenses. And though he already knew it, the sudden tang in the air, the bitter pill of it is as painful to Gabor as a knife plunged in his back would be. He trusted this man, he really, really did, and there are very few people he's ever allowed himself to have that amount of faith in.

The bitterness morphs quickly to a cold hatred within him.

"You're a disgrace Gray," he spits at him. "A worthless traitor and a disappointment to me every bit as large as Sophia was."

Agent Gray's face loses it's smug smile and his lips thin cruelly at this. He says nothing in response, just reaches into his inside jacket pocket pulling free a loaded hypodermic needle that flashes when it catches the sunlight.

Gabor swallows heavily, not because he's afraid to die, the veteran operative has never been afraid of dying – it's just he's never had so many reasons before that he wanted to live.

"It'll be painless." Gray tells him needlessly. "Unlike what happened to you yesterday old man. For old times sake I will at least give you that. And nobody will know, it'll just look like your heart gave out from the stress of the surgery." He steps closer, but Gabor holds up a hand to stop him.

"Why?" The older operative pleads. "After all these years and everything that I've taught you to be, before you take my life I want you to tell me, Gray - why you would do this? Look me in the eye and explain to me why you would betray me?"

Gray shrugs, "Honestly - the money was just too damn good," he replies.

_Money, figures._

"We don't do what we do for money, Gray. We give up our lives to this for the benefit of our country, the calling of a higher purpose."

Agent Gray rolls his eyes.

"Really? Country. Duty. And where in the big scheme of things does that ever get you?" He says snarkily. "Retirement on a tiny pension while drug czars like Valez get to live the high life in return for information? An anonymous death whose sacrifice is never going to be recognized? Well I'm not _you,_ Gabor. And the CIA isn't nearly the institution it purports itself to be, so the bottom line is I'd rather be a rich opportunist than dead or a pauper enslaved to my country."

Silence hangs heavy in the air as the two men stare at each other, its Castle's father who breaks it.

"Wealth is measured in more terms than money," he says, his eyes stony as he waits for needle jab that will end his life. He knows he can't fight Agent Gray off – not in this sorry condition, and even if he were healthy this nondescript looking man would a formidable physical adversary.

Words are all he has left then, and as words serve to instantly remind him of his son maybe, just maybe, he can still get out of this by using them?

"You don't have to do this Gray," he says wearily. "Valez' is lost to the operation but we both know there are others like him and you can do what you want now, plot what you want, and scheme what you like I truly don't care. I'm retiring."

Agent Gray laughs hollowly.

"You wouldn't know how, Gabor. And you remain the final loose end anyway. For what it's worth you've saved your son and his muse. I won't kill them since there is no way for them to trace this back to me, and let's face it their death's would attract highly unwelcome attention."

Gabor raises an eyebrow, and ruthlessly holds his tongue. Because as much as he wants to tell this traitor that he shouldn't underestimate either Kate or Rick he won't risk drawing a target on his child, not even if it could save him. So all he says is,

"You'll be sorry if you do this, Gray."

Gray shakes his head.

"I'm never sorry, Gabor," he says with finality. And then he takes the final step closer that he'll need in order to be able to push the needle into the older man's arm. He raises it in his hand, but before he can plunge it in the loud banging of a door flying open startles the pair of them.

* * *

Alexis has listened to the two men's conversation while growing increasingly afraid and horrified. The fear has chased itself all over her mind, changing rapidly as it did so from a simple fear of discovery, to a deeper and more profound fear of loss. When it hits her that she's as afraid of her father and her grandmother losing the man in the bed - and what it'll do to both of them as she is afraid to be discovered here, a course of action suddenly becomes crystal clear. She pauses the recording on her phone and quickly shares it via email with both her father and Kate. Now they have the evidence of this 'Gray' person's treachery and dammit she's got that plus a bloody loud scream. Hands balled into fists the young woman summons up all the courage she can muster within her – and then Alexis throws the bathroom door wide.

Gabor's eyes dart from Agent Gray's needle-wielding form to the doorway of his hospital bathroom and the unfamiliar young woman with the angry flashing blue eyes who's suddenly standing there. Then it registers with him that she isn't unfamiliar at all, she's Richard's daughter – his granddaughter, and judging by the look on her lovely determined face she's hell-bound on defending him.

"Leave or I'll scream." Alexis says sternly, inside quaking but outwardly looking as calm as a rock. "I mean it. You won't get away with hurting him, and if you touch a single hair on my head you'll have the entire NYPD coming after you."

Agent Gray has the good grace to look vaguely put upon, but he doesn't move from Gabor's side and he doesn't lower the hypodermic needle either.

"Alexis Castle," he says evenly. "My, my – you are certainly unexpected dilemma."

Alexis fakes a smile.

"I'm not a dilemma," she says, pulling her i-phone out from behind her back, and thumbing the lock screen off. She opens the recording app again and her finger hovers over the recording as she says,

"But this is- "And then she hits play.

The recording is tinny and not the greatest quality ever, but the entirety of the two men's conversation is there. By the time the last words have been spoken Agent Gray is visibly vibrating with anger.

Alexis closes the app and then faces that anger defiantly. Drawing on her knowledge of Kate Beckett, she prepares to say what she imagines Kate would do.

"I don't know who you are and I truly don't care, but you aren't going to hurt either him or me," she says, nodding towards the bed and Gabor who's watching her silently, naked pride on his strained face.

"And just so you know," she continues, "I've already emailed the digital file of this to both my father and Detective Beckett – so you could attempt to take my phone, could try and finish what you came here to do, but you wouldn't get away with it. That I can promise you."

Face pale, and mind obviously whirring at the thought of being bested by a college student, Gray turns confused eyes on Gabor, the needle vacillating in his hand.

Gabor seizes the opportunity.

"Go Gray," he says gruffly. "I meant what I said. I'm done with this, and it looks like you are too thanks to Alexis. So take this as an opportunity to disappear, and hope that no member of my family ever lays eyes on you again."

The rogue agent's jaw twitches and then the needle falls from his fingers, clattering on the vinyl floor before it rolls under the bed. Gabor turns his attention to Alexis, Alexis turns her eyes to him, and when both look back for Gray a split second later – the traitor has done as he was bid and vanished into thin air.

The threat gone, Alexis finds her knees are trembling from an overload of adrenaline. She takes a few unsteady steps towards Gabor, before she sinks down next to his hip on the bed. Her grandfather smiles widely at her, looking so much like an older version of her father that it almost takes her breath away.

A tanned hand reaches shakily across the blanket covering him, pulls at her cold small fingers and laces them firmly with his.

"You saved my life," he says warmly. "And so very fiercely. Alexis, what you just did - that was incredibly brave."

The teenager grins tremulously. "Hi," she replies, squeezing his hand back hard. "And you're welcome. Thank you for bringing me back my Dad,"

Gabor nods.

"Is he really gone, do you think?" she asks, eyes darting towards the closed door.

Her grandfather nods again.

"Good," she says, pushing off the bed and pulling free. Gabor looks bereft immediately.

"You don't . . . Do you have to go?" He asks.

Alexis shakes her head, disappearing back into the bathroom before quickly re-emerging with the slightly wilted posy of violets that were the sole reason she was in the bathroom to begin with. The vibrant little flowers still have no water but she presents them to Gabor anyways.

A knowing curve bows his lips and he takes them from her carefully.

"No-one has ever given me flowers before," he tells her, a definite catch in his deep voice.

"Yeah well-"she trails off uncertain of what to say, but them Gabor pats the mattress next to him, and so Alexis resumes her seat next to him.

They are silent for a long moment.

"I used to bring them to my Dad, when he was sick or just sad and I was little." Alexis explains. "Grams would always take me to buy him a posy of violets, because purple is his favorite color, and when I'd give them to him he'd smile again.

Their eyes meet and Gabor says softly,

"I'm very touched then, that you would include me in a family tradition that you have with him."

Alexis nods.

"Tell me about him." Gabor prompts.

Alexis looks confused.

"But you _finally_ actually know him."

Gabor shrugs.

"I'd still like to hear it. He's been the father that I never I was," he explains. "He had no guide. No act to follow. And yet he's so obviously been an exceptional one. So tell me about him, Alexis. Share with me all I should have been."

His granddaughter grins, and then she begins.


	37. Chapter 37

**A/N: Thank you. All of you, who have read and reviewed and encouraged and suggested, and made writing this one of the best experiences of my life. I am so grateful to each and every one of you. Special thanks - as ever, to Kim and Suzanne (Kimmiesjoy & Purplangel) who are the biggest cheerleaders to me, talented authors and the best Casketteers a person could ever find. And I really hope Suz, that you are happy you got YOUR ending.**

* * *

**Epilogue: **We are, we are, we are – unbreakable.

* * *

_Two months later . . ._

* * *

"You haven't told him yet, have you?" Richard Gabor raises a tanned hand and shields his eyes from the bright sunshine beating down from a cloudless cerulean sky overhead. He sits with Kate on a tartan blanket, spread out on an open area of green grass in Central Park, a stone's throw or so from Belvedere Castle.

Beckett drags her gaze away from watching Castle playing Frisbee with Alexis, and looks over at him. There's a mix of anxiety and excitement in her autumn eyes, each in equal measure.

"What?" she says cagily. "Told who what?"

The retired spy narrows his blue eyes at her, before he flicks them across the grass towards the powerful form of his son and then back to hers.

"Told Rick," he says softly.

Kate drops his gaze and stares at the pattern on the blanket instead. Nervous fingers picking at a stray thread and worrying it looser.

"I don't-"

"Don't what?"

Kate sighs, risks looking at her partner's father again. Kindness, understanding and a little excitement color the man's face. Since he's been out of the hospital and rehabbing he's grown steadily both stronger and more open, his desire to have any kind of role in Rick's life clear and unmistakable.

Kate likes him. She likes him a lot in fact. She thinks it must be because she's seeing more and more of her partner in him. Castle is like Martha in a many ways, but there is a huge amount of his father in the mix once you start actually looking.

Holding the man's gaze she debates what to say, wonders even how he knows about this because she hasn't said anything. The knowledge is on Gabor's face however, hovering around his mouth and in the corners of his eyes.

Dammit, is she blushing?

Gabor reaches across the blanket and affectionately pats her on the hand, stilling the mindless fiddling she's doing.

"He's going to be thrilled, Kate. Surely you don't doubt that?"

She instinctively shakes her head.

"I don't," she whispers. "Well not exactly. But we've never talked about it outside of it being a possibility not to be ruled out. We aren't even engaged. I guess I just wanted this one thing for us to be traditional."

Gabor's face crinkles and Kate can see him suppressing the laugh.

"It's not funny," she says defensively.

"I'm sorry. I'm not laughing _at_ you, truly. I'm just trying to picture Richard doing anything big in life 'traditionally'."

This at least pulls a smile out of her.

"Actually he loves traditions," she says seriously. "I think he's always craved the sense of stability they give to him."

"Ah-"

"And yeah, this kind of ruins that actually."

Gabor shakes his head and squeezes her fingers.

"This is a wonderful thing; it doesn't ruin anything, Kate. And I can tell that you're excited."

Beckett bites her lip, but though she's anxious the inner joy she's feeling today shines through so brightly. She's really incredibly beautiful, Gabor thinks. Radiant, intriguing, and extraordinary, his son is a very lucky man really.

"I've wanted this," she replies, her eyes seeking and finding her partner. "I've wanted this with him I think since I first realized how amazing he is with Alexis."

Gabor smiles, "He was born to be a father, undoubtedly," he says wistfully, and Kate hears it in his voice, the long accustomed sorrow he's lived with.

She shrugs, says simply, "I've never met a better one."

"Proving my point exactly, it's why he's going to be thrilled." Gabor re-iterates, observing her closely as the cop unconsciously passes a protective caress low across her abdomen. She watches Rick and Alexis, pupils following every movement, face naked with longing. Finally she tears her eyes from them and meets his gaze again.

"I know that, I do. I just . . . I just want to find that perfect moment to tell him. I want that moment to be special. Honestly I feel a little foolish that it took this long for me to know."

This time Gabor does laugh quietly.

"The last two months have been a little – busy," he points out.

A complete whirlwind in point of fact, and as Kate thinks back over them she finds herself laughing along with him.

Indictments. Circumnavigating CIA interference. Discovering Alexis had saved her grandfather's life the same morning her father broke Karpowski. Explanations and healing. Family time. Watching Martha and Gabor re-connecting. It's been an amazing period in all of their lives actually. And for Kate, now that Castle is home and the threat of Valez removed, discovering that she's pregnant – two months pregnant, well it's the jewel on the top of all of it really. She doesn't think she could be any happier if she tried – except for one thing, one last piece of the puzzle that she wants to fall perfectly into place.

Gabor squeezes her hand again, "You know, you could always just ask him," he says with a knowing smile at her. Apparently the damn man can read every thought in her head.

But it's a thought.

It is a thought.

Kate beams back at her partner's father, with a conspiratorial grin.

* * *

Martha wanders across the park towards her family feeling like she's a cliche floating on a cloud of air. In the distance she can see Richard and Alexis chasing each other, and behind them the distinct figures of Kate and Gabor seated together and watching from the grass.

Seems so strange that just a couple of months ago she never would have believed any of this could be possible. Two short months before and she was out of hope, cripplingly sad, buried alive beneath the crushing weight of her misery.

And now, now she's just – happy.

She's just completely happy.

Her son's homecoming is the greatest gift of all of course, but this rekindling relationship with his father – the way she feels whole in every moment when she's with him. Forty years. _Forty years_ - and no other man ever quite managed to measure up to that day with him. So to see into a future with him now, frankly it's just staggering. It's the impossible, unimagined, reawakening of a dead dream.

Her steps quicken unconsciously, carrying her faster to meet up with him.

* * *

The picnic lunch they've scheduled for today is a mini celebration. Martha's school just got rave reviews for their new show. Gabor got a clean bill of health from his surgeon and the okay to resume a more active lifestyle once again. And a trial date has been set in the New Year for Valez. But with all the evidence and Karpowski's cooperation, the DA is still confident on working out a plea agreement with him, and sparing them the stress of waiting on a jury.

It's over.

The threat is over, and everyone is where they should be once again.

The afternoon ticks on and Gabor snoozes with his head in Martha's lap.

Alexis bids her 'farewell's' and hurries off to hook up with some friends.

And Kate tugs Castle to his feet, and with his hand in hers she trails towards the spot where Belvedere Castle looms up behind them.

* * *

"I love this place," he murmurs in her ear as he settles her atop the lookout in front of him. His arms loop around her waist and he props his head on her shoulder, the warmth of his strong body as brilliant as the sunshine.

Kate smiles, leans back against him and then follows his gaze to where his parents are cozied up together on the Great Lawn below them.

"They look good together," he remarks happily, contentment in his deep voice that speaks volumes.

"They do," she agrees. "They look happy."

He nods against her neck, the trace of stubble on his jaw rasping pleasantly against her skin.

"I hope it lasts for them."

"It will."

"You sound so certain," he says. "I want to be, but . . . "

She tilts her head so she can look at him.

"But?"

"It's a fairytale Kate. And how often in life do you get a fairytale ending?"

"It will," she says again, firmly this time.

He smiles, "Hey I'm not betting against them."

"Good," she says, elbowing him slightly. "But I didn't bring you up here Castle to talk about them."

Her partner looks intrigued.

"So we aren't just enjoying the view then, Detective?"

Kate shakes her head at him.

"No. I want to ask you something, and then I . . .I have something to tell you," she says almost nervously.

Castle frowns.

"Anything, Kate. You should know by now that you can ask or tell me anything," he says gently.

She nods.

"I do. I know that, it's just . . . It's a big thing, it's a really big thing Rick. And it sort of, well it changes everything."

The writer's vivid eyes dim immediately, and all trace of his previously tranquil demeanor evaporate. He tightens his arms around her, presses her more firmly against him.

"Kate-"

Oh, she didn't mean to scare him.

"Marry me," she says quickly, dearly wanting to see him smiling again.

His jaw drops open in shock, he goes to say something but no sound escapes.

"Castle? Say something?"

He swallows heavily.

"Marry you?" he croaks out.

"That's what I said," she says determinedly. "Castle, I want you to marry me."

Shock and disbelief flow out of his eyes and joy, love and laughter flow in.

"Yes," he says quickly, nodding his head rapidly. "God yes, Kate."

He goes to kiss her but with a fingertip she stops him.

"There is something you should know first, something I found out for sure only this morning."

Eyes wide he waits for her to tell him.

"You're going to be a father again."

She doesn't know how but his joy filled eyes light up even further, he looks down at her stomach, pushes her back within his arms slightly so he can just stare at the still flat expanse. The look on his face is just – smitten.

"When?" he asks. "When did it happen?"

She tugs him close again, stares up into his face.

"I'm two months along. I think it must have been the night you came home again."

Images of how fiercely they loved each other that night come to both of them; before Castle picks her up and spins her around, then he just crushes her to him.

"Oh Kate," he whispers, when he finally lets up the onslaught on her mouth. "Oh Kate, this is the best day ever."

Eyes shining she rests her head against his strong chest and listens to the music of his heart beating.

"No, Castle," she disagrees softly. "The best days for us have yet to be written."

_The End._


End file.
